Mining Capitalism The Relationship between Corporations and Their Critics [Hardcover]

Corporations are among the most powerful institutions of our time, but they are also responsible for a wide range of harmful social and environmental impacts. Consequently, political movements and nongovernmental organizations increasingly contest the risks that corporations pose to people and nature.Mining Capitalismexamines the strategies through which corporations manage their relationships with these critics and adversaries. By focusing on the conflict over the Ok Tedi copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea, Stuart Kirsch tells the story of a slow-moving environmental disaster and the international network of indigenous peoples, advocacy groups, and lawyers that sought to protect local rivers and rain forests. Along the way, he analyzes how corporations promote their interests by manipulating science and invoking the discourses of sustainability and social responsibility. Based on two decades of anthropological research, this book is comparative in scope, showing readers how similar dynamics operate in other industries around the world.

Stuart Kirschis Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is the author ofReverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social and Environmental Relations in New Guinea(2006).

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Colliding Ecologies
2. The Politics of Space
3. Down by Law
4. Corporate Science
5. Industry Strikes Back
6. New Politics of Time

Conclusion
Epilogue

Appendix: Timeline of the Ok Tedi Mine and Related Events
Notes
References
Index

Mining Capitalismis excellent. It makes a much-needed contribution to understanding our contemporary historical moment. Kirsch adeptly moves his focus between close-to-the-ground descriptions of corporate practices and persuasive claims about the ways that corporations work to control meaning and money. Kim Fortun, author ofAdvocacy After ls*