Doctoral Dissertation Research: Mining at the Margins: Extractive Industry and Local Governance

博士论文研究：边缘采矿：采掘业和地方治理

• 批准号: 1628403
• 负责人: Lesley Gill
• 金额: $ 2.52万
• 依托单位: Vanderbilt University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2018-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1628403&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Mining; Margins

In frontier regions worldwide, natural resource extraction often displaces and resettles rural communities. Because the institutional state may be distant from these territories, claims to sovereignty and the right to exert regulatory power often get worked out locally. These evolving relationships raise important questions about the nature of government in the contemporary world and the capacities of communities to establish and evaluate political legitimacy. The research funded by this award addresses these questions by taking advantage of an interesting natural experiment in a coal-mining region in northeastern Colombia. Vanderbilt University doctoral student Emma Banks, under the supervision of Dr. Lesley Gill, will undertake the research in a frontier region of Colombia that, for over two decades, has been home to a major open pit coalmine. The mine has displaced communities from their communal rural territories and resettled them in peri-urban villages. Usefully for research purposes, these communities contrast with each other along two significant axes: how recently they have been displaced and whether they are ethnically Afro-descendant or indigenous Indians. Taking advantage of these contrasts, Banks will gather data in four communities that contrast along those lines: two communities resettled earlier, one of each ethnicity; and two resettled more recently, again, once of each ethnicity. This will allow her to see how local political processes evolve over time and how this evolution is affected by the resources accessible by people in different social positions. Banks will compare the legal resources, ethnic identity politics, and alliance networks used by each community to legitimize authority, make the impacts of resettlement visible, and influence resettlement outcomes. To find and compare evidence of legitimacy building, she will conduct participant observation at roundtable meetings between the mine and communities, and interview mine officials, state officials, and community members. To contextualize these findings, she will also carry out archival research and conduct in-depth life history interviews with community members. These data will allow her to better understand a phenomenon found worldwide, including in the United States: how communities and natural resource corporations, away from the direct government control, negotiate legitimacy and influence each other. Findings from this research will inform social science theory of how local politics functions at the local level in the contemporary world. Findings will also be of use to policy makers who seek to devise ways to support resource extraction without disadvantaging citizens and communities.

在世界各地的边境地区，自然资源开采经常使农村社区流离失所和重新定居。由于制度国家可能远离这些领土，对主权的主张和行使监管权力的权利通常是在当地制定的。这些不断演变的关系提出了关于当代世界政府的性质以及社区建立和评估政治合法性的能力的重要问题。这项由该奖项资助的研究通过利用哥伦比亚东北部一个煤矿地区的一项有趣的自然实验来解决这些问题。范德比尔特大学的博士生艾玛·班克斯将在莱斯利·吉尔博士的指导下，在哥伦比亚的一个边境地区进行这项研究，该地区20多年来一直是一个大型露天煤矿的所在地。该煤矿使社区流离失所，离开了他们的农村社区，并将他们重新安置在城市周围的村庄。出于研究的目的，这些社区沿着两个重要的轴线相互对比：他们流离失所的时间有多长，以及他们是非洲裔人还是土著印第安人。利用这些对比，班克斯将在四个与此形成对比的社区收集数据：两个社区较早重新安置，每个种族一个；最近重新安置的两个社区，每个种族再一次。这将使她看到当地的政治进程是如何随着时间的推移而演变的，以及这种演变是如何受到处于不同社会地位的人所获得的资源的影响。银行将比较每个社区使用的法律资源、种族认同政治和联盟网络，以使权力合法化，使重新安置的影响显而易见，并影响重新安置结果。为了寻找和比较合法性建设的证据，她将在矿山和社区之间的圆桌会议上进行参与者观察，并采访矿山官员、州官员和社区成员。为了将这些发现与背景联系起来，她还将进行档案研究，并对社区成员进行深入的生活史访谈。这些数据将让她更好地理解包括美国在内的世界范围内的一个现象：社区和自然资源公司如何远离政府的直接控制，就合法性进行谈判并相互影响。这项研究的发现将为社会科学理论提供有关当代世界地方政治如何在地方层面发挥作用的信息。研究结果也将有助于政策制定者，他们寻求在不对公民和社区不利的情况下，设计出支持资源开采的方法。