The Commons in a Glocal World

17The open cut

Mining, transnational corporations and the commons

Thomas Niederberger, Madlen Kobi and Tobias Haller¹

Introduction

Mining of metals and minerals relies on a process of institutional converting of common-pool resources (CPRs) to state property. This leads to the privatization of ore deposits, while the associated deterioration of the resource base and related costs are externalized onto local communities. Corporate and state actors collude in pushing forward this process, often against considerable local resistance, referring to an ideology of ‘development’, which has aptly been criticized as an ‘anti-politics machine’ (Ferguson 1994). In the newest wave of mining-related expropriation of commons, these mechanisms have become ...