El objetivo principal de este trabajo es presentar importantes novedades sobre el marco histórico y productivo de la explotación minera de la sierra de Corduba en época romana, así como de la gestión de sus recursos. Desde hace años y a partir de la documentación epigráfica disponible, se ha venido apuntando una posible presencia en este territorio de la societas Sisaponensis y de la explotación de plomo y plata por su parte, a pesar de la afamada vinculación con el beneficio del cinabrio que recoge un conocido pasaje de Plinio. Nuestras investigaciones en el norte de Córdoba y los análisis arqueométricos realizados sobre tres lingotes de plomo recuperados en el paraje de Los Escoriales de Doña Rama, situado en la Sierra de Gata (Belmez-Córdoba), suponen una superación de la frontera del conocimiento sobre los aspectos reseñados, ya que permiten contrastar estas dos hipótesis tradicionales y proponer nuevas cuestiones sobre la explotación de estos parajes y la actividad de esta societas. Estos lingotes fueron encontrados en una instalación minero-metalúrgica romana, algo que es excepcional, y conservan una inscripción, S S, que los vincula sin duda con la societas Sisaponensis.

Conflict has become a central concept to understanding the recent expansion of mining across the Andes. Yet, while contestation can emerge and has done so, the continued extraction of minerals requires scholars to attend to how mining projects maintain viability. This article moves beyond analyses of conflict to elucidate the role of compromise in achieving temporary states of homeostasis. Using ethnographic data collected at the Las Bambas copper mine in the highlands of southern Peru, I explore the agential navigation of communities affected by mining and the projects they develop in pursuit of ‘a better life’. The article elucidates the challenges that industrial production presents for professional employment, the limitations of boomtown hustling (informal economic activity) for aspiring individuals, and the rise of artisanal mining as a project of social mobility. Ultimately, the acceptance of such ‘illegal’ mining by corporate proprietors demonstrates the complementary nature that informal and formal extraction play in allaying the momentum of conflict.

The metal-mining boom Latin America experienced in recent decades precipitated highly contentious anti-mining social movements in Central America. In this context, El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban all metal mining by law. In contrast, policy in nearby Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua remained pro-mining. These cases are compared using a most similar systems design. Comparison reveals the importance of three variables: how national economic-elite networks and interests relate to multinational corporations; national movement coordination and goals, specifically in relation to prohibition; and how parties and leaders relied on popular bases or capital. These factors shaped the contention between elites and movements that influenced state actions around mining and led to this ‘least likely case’ of extractive policy change in El Salvador.

While some authors defend the existence of a widespread economic crisis in Brazil during the 18th century, motivated by the fall in the extraction of precious metals, others suggest that the colonial economy maintained a positive performance thanks to the growth of its domestic market. The main goal of this article is to challenge these two explanations, showing that different rhythms of development characterised Brazil's economy in each of its regions. We show that between the 1750s and 1790s, the Amazon region (Maranhão and Pará) experienced uninterrupted growth. Despite some fluctuations, Bahia and Pernambuco showed a tendency towards growth while the centre-south (Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais) suffered an economic contraction. We conclude that there was a stagnation in the added value of exports from all regions, whilst simultaneous growth for all territories occurred only after 1790.

For over a decade, Salvadorean grassroots movements and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) pursued legal innovations with the aim of protecting their water sources from potentially polluting industrial activities such as mining. They initially drafted bans on mining that would preclude the extractive-based development path embraced by neighbouring countries. Eventually, they scaled up their approach and devised a draft proposal for a transboundary waters treaty that addressed the challenges that the ecological materiality of international watercourses poses to national de jure sovereignty. In so doing, the transboundary watershed has become a useful heuristic, a spatial trope to which Salvadoreans have turned to substantiate their claims to sovereignty over the Lempa River waters that El Salvador shares with pro-mining Guatemala and Honduras – claims imbued with an ethics of care rooted in wartime politics and Catholic morality.

This paper analyses economic interaction in Castilla del Oro (Panama) at the beginning of the 16th century. By applying network analysis to fiscal records, the paper reconstructs, represents and tests business networks in the mining sector and how they became more complex with the arrival of emigrants and the appearance of new gold deposits. Results show a dynamic population with a high mobility degree despite the adverse geography and the inexistent communications.

Why and how do societies transform the environmental rules of economic development, or fail to do so? This article compares the experiences of Chile and Peru in the regulation of smelting activities between 1990 and 2010. Air pollution from smelters in Chuquicamata and La Oroya, each emblematic of the two countries’ mining industries, did not give rise to nationally destabilising protest. Nevertheless, despite the absence of pressing discontent with pollution, the environmental rules for mining could still be improved as a result of policy network activism and through highly idiosyncratic institutional channels. The analysis shows that policy entrepreneurship for Chuquicamata was enhanced by a national institutional environment that favoured bureaucratic autonomy, while parallel action for La Oroya was constrained by a political economy of state weakness and elite disregard.