Neo-extractivism and the politics of consent: The case of gold mining in rural Turkey

Abstract

Understanding environmental conflicts requires moving beyond ecological concerns to engage the socio-political foundations of property, class, and power. This article examines how neo-extractivist gold mining projects reconfigure class relations, property regimes, and consent mechanisms in rural Turkey. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork, it focuses on the Efemçukuru gold mine. Unlike left-populist variants of neo-extractivism in Latin America, Turkey’s trajectory unfolds within an authoritarian neoliberal framework, where political orientations shape legitimacy while reinforcing structural inequalities. The findings show how differentiated property regimes and corporate social responsibility initiatives produce fragmented forms of consent, opposition, and co-optation, revealing how extractive interventions penetrate everyday life by blurring boundaries between public interest, corporate authority, and communal belonging. Offering a non-Latin American perspective, the article contributes to broader debates on neo-extractivism by highlighting the entanglement of extractive economies, social reproduction, and rural class restructuring, and argues that structural asymmetries in extractivism persist beyond political orientations.