Doctoral Dissertation Research: Conjuring Copper: The History, Culture, and Science of Mineral Resources in the Ecuadorian Andes

本论文的研究项目建立在厄瓜多尔西北部因塔格地区铜矿开采冲突的基础上。尽管自20世纪90年代中期以来，许多矿业公司一直对此感兴趣，但矿产特许权附近的社区阻止工程师进入该地区。20世纪90年代初，世界银行发起了一系列改革，以吸引国际矿业投资。自那以来，矿业一直是英塔格等地关系紧张的焦点，也是各国议论的话题。尽管没有开发任何大型采矿项目，但厄瓜多尔现任总统仍然对该国的采矿潜力保持同样的信心。当代关于矿产财富的说法与之前对矿产匮乏的评估形成了鲜明对比。在20世纪的大部分时间里，地质学家将厄瓜多尔描述为一个主要以缺乏矿产资源而闻名的国家。在20世纪70年代考虑铜矿床的板块构造模型之前，矿业地质学家一再表示，厄瓜多尔的地质不支持工业规模的采矿。基于厄瓜多尔从矿产匮乏国家向矿产丰富国家的转变，以及因塔格地区铜矿开采引发的冲突，本研究提出了以下问题。厄瓜多尔安第斯山脉的矿产资源是如何在历史上构成、社会构成和不同想象的？这项研究项目的目标是通过调查历史、政治、文化和地质背景来使矿产资源非自然化，在厄瓜多尔，矿藏，特别是铜，作为具有经济意义的物体而具体化。这项研究将考察厄瓜多尔的矿产资源，因为它们出现在科学期刊上，与地质图有关，并通过地质实地调查。它将把当代对厄瓜多尔矿产财富的评估、叙述和隐喻与19世纪和20世纪初旅行作家和博物学家对安第斯自然的描述进行比较。通过对因塔格聚落历史的研究和对当代土地关系的人种学分析，该项目还将考虑当地资源认识论，即当地人口代表和描绘地下矿产资源的角度。该项目从科学和技术研究以及环境人类学和拉丁美洲历史中汲取形式并对文学作出贡献。通过阐明资源认识论、资源历史和国家发展目标，该项目的结果将为当地社区和政策制定者提供有用的参考点。

This dissertation research project builds on the conflict over copper mining in the Intag region of northwestern Ecuador. Despite sustained interest by a number of mining companies since the mid 1990s, communities adjacent to the mineral concession have blocked engineers from accessing the area. Mining has been a point of tension in places like Intag and a topic of national discourse since the early 1990s, when the World Bank sponsored a series of reforms to attract international mining investment. Though no major mining projects have developed, Ecuador's current president remains equally certain of the country's mining potential. Contemporary claims of mineral wealth stand in stark contrast to previous assessments of mineral dearth. Through most of the 20th century, geologists describe Ecuador as a country noted primarily for its lack of mineral resources. Until their considerations in the 1970s of plate tectonic models of copper deposits, mining geologists repeatedly stated that Ecuador's geology would not support industrial-scale mining. Based on Ecuador's transformation from a country of mineral scarcity to one of mineral plenty, and drawing on the conflict over copper mining in the Intag region, this research asks the following question. How are mineral resources in the Ecuadorian Andes historically constituted, socially constructed, and differentially imagined?The goal of this research project is to de-naturalize mineral resources by investigating the historical, political, cultural, and geological contexts through which mineral deposits, especially copper, materialized as objects of economic significance in Ecuador. This research will examine Ecuador's mineral resources as they emerged in scientific journals, in relation to geological maps, and through geological fieldwork. It will compare contemporary assessments, narratives, and metaphors of Ecuador's mineral wealth with depictions of Andean nature by 19th and early 20th century travel writers and naturalists. Through research on Intag's settlement history and ethnographic analysis of contemporary agrarian relations, this project will also consider local resource epistemology, the perspective from which local populations represent and depict subsoil mineral resources. This project draws form and contributes to literature from Science and Technology Studies as well as environmental anthropology and Latin American history. In the way it elucidates resource epistemology, resource history, and state development goals, the results of this project will be a useful reference point for both local communities and policy makers.