Men of contamination. Masculinities, care and extraction in the artisanal and small-scale mining geographies of the Bajo Cauca and Nordeste of Antioquia regions (Colombia)

Chiavaroli, Chiara, Rubiano Galvis, Sebastián and Kaufmann, Christoph (2025) Men of contamination. Masculinities, care and extraction in the artisanal and small-scale mining geographies of the Bajo Cauca and Nordeste of Antioquia regions (Colombia). Geoforum, 166. ISSN 0016-7185

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Abstract

Scholarship in Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) in Latin America has extensively investigated the ways in which gender frames the everyday life experiences of racialised and marginalised social actors in the geographies of natural resource extraction. Yet, research on extractive masculinities remains limited and, in environmental policy arenas in Latin America, fixed representations of men as contaminating and environmentally damaging continue to inform artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) policies. In this paper, we conduct an ethnographic investigation of the forms of masculinity that emerge in the geographies of artisanal, small-scale gold mining in Colombia and locate them in the ambiguous intersections between extraction and care. We investigate the processes of gendered subjectivity-making that unfold through everyday relations with a precarious and toxic environment to conceptualise masculinity as a complex technology of the self that regulates social relations in extractivist regions. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Bajo Cauca and Nordeste regions in Antioquia (Northern Colombia), this paper contributes to debates on extractive subjectivities in Latin American FPE in two ways. In the first place, it conceptualizes extractive masculinities as dynamic, heterogenous and ambiguously located at the intersection between extraction and processes of place-making. Secondly, it contributes to expanding debates on care in complex socio-environmental settings by analysing the role played by men in sustaining processes of social reproduction and reconceptualising the geographies of care in territories of extraction beyond the private space of the home and feminised practices of domestic labour.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	International Development
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman T Technology > TN Mining engineering. Metallurgy
Date Deposited:	06 Oct 2025 14:48
Last Modified:	27 Oct 2025 18:43
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/129691

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