The Three Deaths of Cerro de San Pedro: Four Centuries of Extractivism in a Small Mexican Mining Town
This is a history of precious-metals extractivism as lived in Cerro de San Pedro, a small gold- and silver-mining district in Mexico. Chronicling Cerro de San Pedro's operations from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present, Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert transcends standard narratives of boom and bust to envision a multicentury series of mining cycles, first operated under Spanish rule, then by North American industry, and today in the post-NAFTA world of transnational capitalism. The depletion of a mine did not mark the end of its life, it turns out.

Evolving technology accelerated the flow of matter and energy moving through the extractive systems of exhausted mines and revived profitability over and over again in Mexico's mining districts. Studnicki-Gizbert demonstrates how this serial reanimation of a non-renewable resource was catalyzed by capital and supported by state policy and ideology and how each new cycle imposed ever more harmful consequences on both laborers and natural ecologies. At the same time, however, miners and their communities pursued a contending vision—a moral ecology—that defended the healthy reproduction of life and land. This book's breathtakingly long view brings important perspective to environmental justice conflicts around extraction in Latin America today.
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The Three Deaths of Cerro de San Pedro: Four Centuries of Extractivism in a Small Mexican Mining Town
This is a history of precious-metals extractivism as lived in Cerro de San Pedro, a small gold- and silver-mining district in Mexico. Chronicling Cerro de San Pedro's operations from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present, Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert transcends standard narratives of boom and bust to envision a multicentury series of mining cycles, first operated under Spanish rule, then by North American industry, and today in the post-NAFTA world of transnational capitalism. The depletion of a mine did not mark the end of its life, it turns out.

Evolving technology accelerated the flow of matter and energy moving through the extractive systems of exhausted mines and revived profitability over and over again in Mexico's mining districts. Studnicki-Gizbert demonstrates how this serial reanimation of a non-renewable resource was catalyzed by capital and supported by state policy and ideology and how each new cycle imposed ever more harmful consequences on both laborers and natural ecologies. At the same time, however, miners and their communities pursued a contending vision—a moral ecology—that defended the healthy reproduction of life and land. This book's breathtakingly long view brings important perspective to environmental justice conflicts around extraction in Latin America today.
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The Three Deaths of Cerro de San Pedro: Four Centuries of Extractivism in a Small Mexican Mining Town

The Three Deaths of Cerro de San Pedro: Four Centuries of Extractivism in a Small Mexican Mining Town

by Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert
The Three Deaths of Cerro de San Pedro: Four Centuries of Extractivism in a Small Mexican Mining Town

The Three Deaths of Cerro de San Pedro: Four Centuries of Extractivism in a Small Mexican Mining Town

by Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert

eBook

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Overview

This is a history of precious-metals extractivism as lived in Cerro de San Pedro, a small gold- and silver-mining district in Mexico. Chronicling Cerro de San Pedro's operations from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present, Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert transcends standard narratives of boom and bust to envision a multicentury series of mining cycles, first operated under Spanish rule, then by North American industry, and today in the post-NAFTA world of transnational capitalism. The depletion of a mine did not mark the end of its life, it turns out.

Evolving technology accelerated the flow of matter and energy moving through the extractive systems of exhausted mines and revived profitability over and over again in Mexico's mining districts. Studnicki-Gizbert demonstrates how this serial reanimation of a non-renewable resource was catalyzed by capital and supported by state policy and ideology and how each new cycle imposed ever more harmful consequences on both laborers and natural ecologies. At the same time, however, miners and their communities pursued a contending vision—a moral ecology—that defended the healthy reproduction of life and land. This book's breathtakingly long view brings important perspective to environmental justice conflicts around extraction in Latin America today.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781469671116
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 11/30/2022
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 324
File size: 12 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert is associate professor of history at McGill University and author of A Nation upon the Ocean Sea.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

The first longue duree environmental history of mining in Mexico—in Latin America, period—this extraordinary book will become a foundational study of extraction on a large historical scale. With a great narrative and detail, it is the whole package. One can hope that students training to become mining engineers will read it, too."—Myrna I. Santiago, Saint Mary's College of California

Sweeping, ambitious, and engaging, this deep history of a 'small place' reveals how the furies of colonialism and capitalism swept over and through a mining town and left it tattered and scarred. Studnicki-Gizbert provides vital historical and material contexts for understanding—and intervening—in contemporary conflicts over extractivism in Mexico and beyond."—John Soluri, Carnegie Mellon University

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