Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal最新文献

{"title":"Global syndrome at the local level: The politics of illicit financial flows in Ghana’s artisanal small-scale gold mining sector","authors":"Abigail A. Tetteh Yankey ,&nbsp;Fritz Brugger ,&nbsp;Fred M. Dzanku","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101791","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101791","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Most existing studies on illicit financial flows (IFFs) tend to conceptualise it as a global issue, often overlooking the nuanced local complexities that facilitate IFF activities. This qualitative study focuses on Ghana's Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Sector (ASGM), utilising conceptual analysis and fieldwork data to examine the dynamics of IFFs and their implications within local mining fields, the gold trading hubs, and the regulatory sector from the Western, Ashanti, and Greater Accra Regions. The findings reveal operations involving both legal and illegal miners, traders and highlight local discrepancies that incentivise illicit mining and gold trading activities. Key issues identified include challenges in land acquisition, registration, mining license acquisition processes, and illegal trading and use of mercury. The study also uncovers the complex interplay between local and foreign actors in the gold trading network, who often interact with both licit and illicit miners and traders. Furthermore, the study identifies structural and capacity weaknesses within regulatory institutions which create opportunities for illicit activities and concludes with policy and practical recommendations to curb IFFs and ASGM in Ghana to curb IFFs in the ASGM sector.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101791"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of sustainability challenges for lithium production: The case of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile in the Lithium Triangle","authors":"Raphael Deberdt ,&nbsp;Maria Sol Saavedra ,&nbsp;Nicole M. Smith ,&nbsp;Morgan Bazilian","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101789","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101789","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This review article examines the sustainability challenges facing lithium extraction and production in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. These three countries form the “Lithium Triangle” and hold approximately 50 % of the world’s known lithium resources. As the global demand for lithium surges with the booming battery industry for electric vehicles and electronics, these countries face the challenge of managing their vast resources to maximize economic benefits while addressing sustainability concerns. We identify a total of 123 articles published between 2015 and 2025, which encompassed at least one dimension of sustainability, conceptualized in terms of environmental, social and governance categories. From these, we identified two well-known dimensions linked to environmental, social, and governance impacts in the South American lithium industry – water use and Indigenous rights. However, our study also points to a more complex set of sustainability concerns that are often sidelined. These include impacts on biodiversity, health, and the governance mechanisms through which lithium is governed in the three countries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101789"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145220284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Beyond closure: Just transition, environmental values and vital expectations in post- coal Spain","authors":"Alexia Sanz-Hernández ,&nbsp;Manuel García Docampo ,&nbsp;Xaquín S. Pérez Sindín ,&nbsp;María Andrade-Suárez","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101783","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101783","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article compares environmental sensitivity, life expectations, and perceptions of the Just Transition between Spanish municipalities affected and unaffected by decarbonization. In the context of coal mine and thermal power plant closures, it analyzes public attitudes through a nationally representative survey (n=1,800) that includes an oversampling of post-industrial territories. Based on three synthetic indicators, the results systematically compare affected and non-affected populations. The findings reveal a sociological paradox: despite displaying a more pessimistic view of the present and future, and expressing greater disagreement with the institutional mechanisms of the Just Transition, decarbonized municipalities maintain equal or even higher levels of environmental concern than the national average. This suggests that adherence to ecological values can coexist with criticism of the specific territorial implementation of climate policies. The study engages with debates on energy justice, the ecology of discontent, and post-extractive adaptive capacity. It offers empirical evidence to rethink the legitimacy frameworks of green transitions and challenges the assumption that structural decline necessarily leads to ecological disengagement, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of post-industrial subjectivities within the framework of climate justice.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101783"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sustainability assessment of Las Bambas copper mine: Reviewing disclosures","authors":"Fatemeh Hassanpourroudbeneh ,&nbsp;Pouya Zangeneh","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101787","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101787","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mining plays a significant role in social development, contributing directly or indirectly to almost all aspects of modern life and economic sectors. However, while mining generates significant economic benefits, it often creates environmental and social challenges. This study focuses on the Las Bambas copper mine in Peru, one of the largest open-pit mines in South America and a focal point of socio-environmental conflict. Using a longitudinal dataset of sustainability reports published between 2014 and 2023, the study develops and applies a four-step content analysis framework that integrates the ICMM principles, GRI standards, SDGs, and stakeholder concerns. This framework enables a systematic evaluation of the scope, consistency, and depth of reporting across environmental, social, and economic dimensions. The analysis highlights both achievements and reporting gaps, showing how sustainability disclosures can simultaneously clarify and obscure mining impacts. The Las Bambas case demonstrates the value of critical application of a framework for assessing corporate sustainability practices and provides insights applicable to other extractive industries where the credibility of reporting remains contested.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101787"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145158986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Putting in place to extract: Infrastructures of extractivism and the case of lithium extraction in Chile","authors":"Dr. Daniela Soto-Hernández","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101778","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101778","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Extractivism has become a widely used concept in the field of research as the extensive and intensive extraction of natural resources increasingly undergirds capital accumulation. However, most of the existing literature on extractivism has focused mainly on how to define it and how to identify its consequences (conflicts, violence, discourses, power imbalances); the emphasis thus has been on looking at what <em>comes out</em> of the process. Less attention has been paid to what <em>goes in</em> to the process of extraction, its pre-requisites, and those material and immaterial enablers that need to be “in place” for extraction to occur. This article corrects this oversight by highlighting what has been glossed over in the literature: the critical role played by cultural (namely, narratives, knowledge, capital, law, and bureaucracy) and material infrastructures, and the ontologies that make extraction possible over time. I argue extractivism would not exist without a <em>one-world world</em> (Law, 2015) notion that by positing a nature/civilization divide makes it both possible and legitimate to instrumentalise socionatures (both human and non-human) by constituting them as open for human exploitation. Drawing on anti-colonial thinking, critical cultural political economy, and critical geography of resources, this article analyzes the case study of lithium extraction in Chile so as to render visible the infrastructures that enable extraction. Lithium extraction constitutes a fruitful example of both how old extractivism has worked to enable new extractive frontiers and how to better understand the challenges that must be overcome if we are to move towards post-extractive futures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101778"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145158988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unlocking the subsurface through knowledge controversy : how earthquakes induced by deep geothermal drilling have politicized the subsurface environment","authors":"Justin Missaghieh--Poncet,&nbsp;Xavier Arnauld de Sartre","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101780","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101780","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The expansion of geothermal energy extraction from new geological contexts in France is prompting the development of ‘enhanced’ geothermal systems (EGS). However, the subsurface is a complex environment in which multiple uncertainties arise because of its confinement, both physical and in terms of access to knowledge and power, and which cannot easily be modified. We analyse how the seismicity induced by geothermal drilling in the Strasbourg region (France) has given rise to a public debate that has brought the subsurface out of its confinement and into political and civic arenas in particular. To attempt to understand how this occurred, we analysed interviews, press reports and grey literature, from which it transpired, firstly, that the cause of the earthquakes can be traced back to negligence and a culture of confidentiality on the part of the operating company, which underestimated certain models and failed to seek any outside opinion. Secondly, failures in the enforcement of subsurface regulations at the central government level were found to be due to a loss of expertise in the relevant government departments as a result of government reforms, which subsequently led to a reform of the mining code to re-establish a measure of control. Thirdly, we found that the earthquakes triggered the involvement of new interested parties, particularly from the civic and political spheres, which brought out issues relating to environmental and risk management through demands for more open access to knowledge about the subsurface. In effect, these earthquakes were the catalyst that enabled subsurface issues to break out of the expert sphere and into political and citizens’ arenas. However, what emerges is a process of politicization of subsurface environments that is still incomplete : the positions of the various players are open to question as regards governance, which, notwithstanding emerging demands, remains in the hands of central government and industrialists with little prospect of broader involvement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101780"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145158984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Invisible labor and unequal futures: Women’s structural constraints in Philippine mining communities","authors":"Rachel Arcede ,&nbsp;Jewry Catle ,&nbsp;Ordem Maglente ,&nbsp;Jayrold Arcede","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101786","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101786","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the gendered consequences of mining-led development in the Caraga region of the Philippines. Drawing on a mixed-methods design across four barangays with varying mining exposure, we analyze how structural constraints—unpaid care labor, limited educational access, employment precarity, and geographic isolation—intersect to restrict women’s socioeconomic mobility. Using Gender Analysis, Intersectionality, and Social Reproduction Theory, we reveal how these layered exclusions sustain economic inequality despite women’s vital, yet invisible, contributions to household and community survival. Findings indicate a need for gender-sensitive governance and inclusive post-extractive planning. This paper advances feminist development and extractive industry scholarship by empirically demonstrating how care work, labor marginalization, and spatial peripherality entrench gendered vulnerability in resource-dependent regions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101786"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145158987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The future of coal mining landscape in children´s imagination: Using drawings as a research tool in post-mining land use planning","authors":"Daniel Kaplan ,&nbsp;Bohumil Frantál","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101785","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101785","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The post-mining landscape restoration is a global challenge which involves many dilemmas and arouses land use conflicts. While the potential of natural succession and the importance of participatory planning have been emphasized, the voices of local stakeholders - particularly the young generation - remain absent from decision-making processes. This study addresses this gap by exploring how children aged 6–12 living near a large surface coal mine envision the future of landscape, using drawings as a research method. Based on visual content analysis of 46 images, we examine the diversity of children's preferences and their alignment with adult-oriented plans. The pictures reveal a wide spectrum of ideas, from low-intervention natural landscapes to highly anthropogenic designs featuring waterparks, or housing developments. Statistically significant differences were observed between younger and older children, with older ones showing a greater preference for natural landscapes. Children’s visions were influenced by existing local features yet also expressed imaginative alternatives beyond conventional planning frameworks. The study demonstrates the methodological value of using drawings to map spatial perceptions and highlights the potential for meaningful child participation in post-mining land use, thus rather than dismissing children’s ideas as unrealistic, planners should consider their contributions as legitimate and insightful.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101785"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145158985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Plugging the gaps: Sustainable resource policy and revenue leakages in Nigeria’s small-scale lithium mining","authors":"Olushola Daniel Eniowo ,&nbsp;Hendrik Grobler ,&nbsp;Antoine F. Mulaba-Bafubiandi ,&nbsp;Moshood Onifade ,&nbsp;Olasumbo Makinde ,&nbsp;Sunday Olabisi Daramola","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101788","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101788","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rapid global demand for lithium, driven by the energy transition and the adoption of green technologies, has intensified interest in Nigeria's lithium-rich mineral deposits. However, the burgeoning small-scale lithium mining sector is plagued by significant revenue leakages that undermine the country’s economic potential and sustainable development efforts. This study examines the root causes and mechanisms of revenue losses in Nigeria’s small-scale lithium mining, with a focus on regulatory loopholes, informal trading networks, inadequate monitoring systems, and weak institutional enforcement. The study employed a qualitative research method, which involved a grounded theory approach using inductive reasoning to analyse semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in the Nigerian small-scale lithium sector, including miners, buyers, and regulatory officials. The field data, which were collected through interviews, were transcribed, coded and thematically analysed using <em>Atlas.ti</em> to identify patterns of leakage in royalty collection and governance. The findings reveal six major drivers of revenue leakage: false production disclosure, inadequate logistics for monitoring, lack of data collection, lack of export disclosure, lack of incentives for royalty payment-compliant miners, and mineral smuggling by foreigners. Additionally, the study identified six counterproductive policies and regulatory challenges affecting revenue generation in the sector, which include weak monitoring, bureaucracy, policy change and inconsistencies, extortion by enforcement agencies, regulatory inefficiency, and multiple taxation by different levels of government. The study concludes by underscoring the urgent need for policy reform, capacity building in regulatory institutions, and the formalisation of artisanal and small-scale mining operations. By addressing these structural gaps, Nigeria can not only curb revenue leakages but also position itself as a key player in the global lithium supply chain while advancing economic diversification and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101788"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145118851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Accelerated extractivism in the age of tariffs: Impacts on Indigenous peoples","authors":"Tyler McCreary ,&nbsp;James Wilt ,&nbsp;Warren Bernauer","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101782","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101782","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As a crisis response to the economic uncertainty associated with American tariffs, Canadian politicians have committed to accelerate development of extractive projects and infrastructure to expand trade with diversified global markets. Across the political spectrum, Canadian legislators are rushing to rewrite laws to fast-track project approvals and codify a newly emergent political consensus around the need for speed in export-oriented extraction. In this short intervention, we point to the need for new community-based research with Indigenous communities to evaluate the impacts of the acceleration of extractive politics in Canada.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 101782"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145118977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}