Mining & Extractive Transformations
Amazonia · Mining · Resource Governance · Regional Development
Mining and natural-resource extraction constitute one of the longest-running empirical fields of my research. Beginning with research on artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Amazonia, this work has progressively expanded toward industrial mining, resource governance, transnational corporations and international raw-material policies.
Rather than approaching mining as an isolated economic sector, I examine extractive activities as processes through which regions become connected to global markets, organizations, regulatory regimes and changing societal expectations.
A central question runs through this research:
How does mineral extraction transform regional configurations and development possibilities, and how are these transformations shaped by wider processes in world society?
Research Development
Artisanal Gold Mining and Amazonian Development
My early research focused on artisanal and small-scale gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon, examining labour relations, technological change, forms of social organization and the conditions under which mineral resources were exploited.
Garimpo was not approached as an isolated local activity. The research increasingly examined how extraction and labour became connected to regional structures, national policies and international markets.
This research established an enduring interest in the relationships among resource extraction, social organization and regional transformation in Amazonia.
From Gold Mining to Industrial Mining
Research conducted in the mid-1990s broadened the analysis through comparison between artisanal gold mining and industrial mineral extraction.
The project Ouro: a garimpagem e a mineração industrial examined how different forms of extraction were organized and how they generated different social, economic and environmental consequences.
This comparative perspective shifted attention from garimpo as a particular activity toward the broader role of mining in regional transformation.
Mining, Sustainability and Regional Development
A further step occurred with the integrated research programme Estratégias de Sustentabilidade and my subproject Extração Mineral e Desenvolvimento Sustentável.
The research asked whether and under which conditions extraction of non-renewable mineral resources could become connected to durable regional-development benefits.
It examined mining projects, public policy, economic linkages, institutional conditions, global mineral relations and competing theories of sustainable development.
The project also raised a broader analytical problem:
How does a region structure and transform itself in response to an external intervention such as a large mining project?
This question became increasingly important in my subsequent research on regional development.
The project also contributed to a theoretical transition. Initial attempts to use concepts derived from synergetics, self-organization and non-linear thermodynamics increasingly gave way to social systems theory as a framework for addressing the complexity of social processes and the limits of deliberate political intervention.
Organizations, Institutions and Formalization
Research in the early 2000s strengthened the focus on organizations and institutional arrangements.
The project Organization and Institutions in Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Brazil compared gold mining in Itaituba and the Tapajós region with gemstone mining in Teófilo Otoni.
The research examined miners' organizations, institutional structures, formalization, decision-making, conflict processing and relationships between mining organizations and public institutions.
This work demonstrated the importance of analysing not only formal regulation but also the organizational practices through which rules, representation and collective interests operate in different mining regions.
Questions concerning organizations, institutional arrangements and formalization subsequently became increasingly important in research on artisanal and small-scale gold mining.
Institutions, Governance and the Regulation of Extraction
Later comparative research further developed these questions.
The GOMIAM — Gold Mining in the Amazon project examined artisanal and small-scale gold mining across several South American countries and addressed livelihoods, formalization, institutions, conflicts and resource governance.
Research showed that formal regulation does not simply eliminate informal practices. Mining activities often operate through combinations of legal rules, organizational structures, local practices and informal arrangements.
Research on legal systems, corporate social responsibility and human rights extended this perspective toward the role of public administrations, corporations and other organizations in processing heterogeneous expectations concerning mineral extraction.
This strengthened the focus on organizations and institutional arrangements as central to understanding how extraction becomes regulated, contested and transformed.
Industrial Mining and Regional Transformation
Research on large-scale industrial mining shifted the focus toward more comprehensive processes of regional transformation, particularly in Pará and the Carajás region.
Industrial mining connects resource-producing regions to global commodity markets, transnational corporations, investment flows and large-scale infrastructures.
These connections can generate employment, fiscal revenues, infrastructure and new economic opportunities while simultaneously producing migration, rapid urbanization, environmental pressures, institutional demands, dependencies and inequalities.
The central question therefore increasingly concerns how mining-induced transformations interact with historically established regional structures and with the organizational and institutional capacities through which regions respond to rapid economic and territorial change.
Research through MINESUPA — Sustainability of Mining in Pará and later applied research in Canaã dos Carajás further developed this perspective.
Global Raw-Material Governance
Research on European and particularly German raw-material policies extended the analysis toward the international governance of mineral resources.
The increasing strategic importance of mineral supply connects resource-producing regions in Latin America to industrial policies, supply-chain strategies and geopolitical transformations elsewhere in world society.
These processes create new forms of interdependence between extraction regions, corporations, states and international regulatory regimes while reshaping the conditions under which particular mineral resources and resource-producing regions acquire strategic relevance.
This perspective shifts attention from the governance of extraction within resource-producing regions toward the wider societal processes through which mineral demand, standards, investment priorities and raw-material strategies are generated beyond those regions.
Mining in Regional Development in World Society
These different research strands increasingly converge in the research programme Regional Development in World Society.
Extractive regions are not shaped by mineral resources alone. Their regional configurations are formed and transformed as global markets, political decisions, legal regimes, organizations, scientific knowledge and infrastructures become selectively connected under historically established regional conditions.
From this perspective, mining provides an especially revealing empirical field for analysing how global societal processes acquire regionally specific forms.
Mineral resources become socially relevant through scientific knowledge, technological possibilities, economic valuation, legal regulation, political decisions and organizational strategies.
Mining regions can therefore be analysed as historically evolving regional configurations in which heterogeneous world-societal processes become selectively connected around mineral resources, infrastructures, organizations and populations.
The central question is:
How does mineral extraction transform regional configurations, and under what conditions do these transformations expand or constrain regional development possibilities?
Current Research
Current research increasingly considers these questions under changing conditions of global resource governance.
The energy transition, decarbonization strategies and the growing strategic importance attributed to critical minerals create new contexts for examining relationships among mineral demand, resource governance and regional development.
These transformations raise questions about how emerging raw-material strategies, responsible-mining standards, supply-chain policies and changing global demand may affect development possibilities, organizational capacities, dependencies and inequalities in resource-producing regions.
Within Regional Development in World Society, these developments provide an opportunity to investigate how transformations occurring elsewhere in world society can alter the relevance of particular resources and regions and generate new processes of selective territorialization and regionalization.
Research Foundations
Research on mining and extractive transformations draws on political economy, economic geography, political ecology, research on institutions and resource governance, and scholarship on global production networks and regional development.
Political-economy approaches provide an important foundation for analysing mineral extraction within broader processes of capitalist accumulation, world-market integration and uneven development.
Political ecology extends this perspective by examining how extraction transforms relationships among resources, territories, populations and political institutions.
Research on global production networks is particularly relevant for understanding how mineral-producing regions become connected to transnational corporations, commodity markets, technologies and infrastructures. These approaches demonstrate that regional development cannot be derived from the presence of mineral resources alone. Development outcomes depend on the specific relationships through which extraction becomes connected to regional economies, organizations and institutional capacities.
Research on mining governance further shows that mineral extraction is shaped by heterogeneous regulatory arrangements involving states, corporations, legal systems, local organizations and affected populations.
Formalization, regulation and corporate responsibility therefore need to be analysed as organizational and institutional processes rather than as simple transitions from informal to formal resource governance.
Research on extractive industries in Latin America adds particular attention to territorial transformation, socio-environmental conflicts and the differentiated consequences of resource extraction for regions and communities.
These perspectives provide important foundations for my current research within Regional Development in World Society. RWS extends the analysis beyond economic production networks by asking how economic, political, legal, scientific and other world-societal processes become selectively connected and organizationally processed within historically evolving regional configurations.
Selected References
Bebbington, A., & Bury, J. (eds.) (2013). Subterranean Struggles: New Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America. University of Texas Press.
Bridge, G. (2008). “Global Production Networks and the Extractive Sector: Governing Resource-Based Development.” Journal of Economic Geography, 8(3), 389–419. DOI 10.1093/jeg/lbn009.
Coe, N. M., Hess, M., Yeung, H. W.-C., Dicken, P., & Henderson, J. (2004). “‘Globalizing’ Regional Development: A Global Production Networks Perspective.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 29(4), 468–484.
Dorn, F. M., & Huber, C. (2020). “Global Production Networks and Natural Resource Extraction: Adding a Political Ecology Perspective.” Geographica Helvetica, 75, 183–193. DOI 10.5194/gh-75-183-2020.
Nilsen, T. (2019). “Global Production Networks and Strategic Coupling in Value Chains Entering Peripheral Regions.” The Extractive Industries and Society, 6(3), 815–822.
Arboleda, M. (2016). “Spaces of Extraction, Metropolitan Explosions: Planetary Urbanization and the Commodity Boom in Latin America.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40(1), 96–112.
Bebbington, A. et al. (2008). “Mining and Social Movements: Struggles Over Livelihood and Rural Territorial Development in the Andes.” World Development, 36(12), 2888–2905. DOI 10.1016/j.worlddev.2007.11.016.
Ticci, E., & Escobal, J. (2015). “Extractive Industries and Local Development in the Peruvian Highlands.” Environment and Development Economics, 20(1), 101–126. DOI 10.1017/S1355770X13000685.
Research Networks
International research networks provide an important context for exchange and cooperation beyond individual research projects.
I participate in the Geo-Network of Latin-American–German Alumni (GOAL), an interdisciplinary network connecting researchers and professionals working on geosciences, natural resources and related societal challenges in Latin America and Germany.
Selected Research Projects
Projeto Mineração — Ouro: a garimpagem e a mineração industrial
1994–1996 · IDRC · UFPA/NAEA · Senior Researcher
Research comparing artisanal and industrial gold mining in Amazonia and examining social, economic and environmental forms of mineral extraction.
Estratégias de Sustentabilidade — Extração Mineral e Desenvolvimento Sustentável
1996–1998 · CNPq · NAEA/UFPA · Responsible for Subproject 2
Research on the relationships among mineral extraction, sustainable development, public policy, world-market relations and regional transformation.
Organization and Institutions in Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Brazil
2003–2004 · IDRC — MPRI/IIPM · CETEM/MCT · NAEA/UFPA · Researcher / Responsible for NAEA-UFPA Collaboration
Comparative research on gold mining in Itaituba/Tapajós and gemstone mining in Teófilo Otoni, examining organizations, institutional arrangements, formalization and public regulation.
MINESUPA — Sustainability of Mining in Pará
2006–2008 · FINEP/FNDCT · UFPA/NAEA · Project Coordinator
Research on mining sustainability in Pará and the relationships among mineral extraction, regional development, public policy and socio-environmental conditions.
Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Northern Brazil
2010–2011 · WWF Guianas / WWF Brazil · Amapá · Northern Pará · Transboundary Mining
Research on artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Amapá and northern Pará and its relationship to protected areas, regulation and the movement of Brazilian miners into the Guianas.
GOMIAM — Gold Mining in the Amazon
2011–2016 · NWO-WOTRO CoCooN · International Comparative Research
Comparative research on artisanal and small-scale gold mining, livelihoods, organizations, formalization, institutions, conflicts and resource governance across several South American countries.
European and German Raw-Material Policy in Latin America
2014–2015 · CAPES · Postdoctoral Research
Research on European and German raw-material policies and their implications for resource-producing regions in Latin America.
Selected Publications
Mathis, A. (1995). “Garimpagem de ouro na Amazônia.” Papers do NAEA, Paper 36.
Mathis, A. (1998). “Garimpagem de ouro e valorização da Amazônia: a formação de relações de trabalho sob o quadrângulo mercado internacional, Estado Nacional, região e natureza.” Papers do NAEA, Paper 101.
Mathis, A., Mathis, A. de A., & Peregovich, B. (2009). “A sustentabilidade da mineração na Amazônia – o caso do Estado do Pará (Brasil).” Papers do NAEA, Paper 257.
Mathis, A. de A., & Mathis, A. (2012). “Responsabilidade social corporativa e direitos humanos: discursos e realidades.” Revista Katálysis, 15(1), 131–140. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1414-49802012000100013
Kolen, J., de Theije, M. E. M., & Mathis, A. (2013). “Formalized Small-Scale Gold Mining in the Brazilian Amazon: An Activity Surrounded by Informality.” In L. Cremers, J. Kolen & M. de Theije (eds.), Small-Scale Gold Mining in the Amazon: The Cases of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Suriname, pp. 31–45. Cuadernos del CEDLA 26. Amsterdam: CEDLA.
de Theije, M., Kolen, J., Heemskerk, M., Duijves, C., Sarmiento, M., Urán, A., Lozada, I., Ayala, H., Perea, J., Mathis, A., & Mathis, A. de A. (2014). “Engaging Legal Systems in Small-Scale Gold Mining Conflicts in Three South American Countries.” In Conflicts over Natural Resources in the Global South, pp. 129–146. CRC Press/Taylor & Francis.
Sousa, S., & Mathis, A. (2024). “Mineração na Amazônia: a disputa jurídica pela Terra.” Revista de Estudos Empíricos em Direito, 10, 1–20.
Related Research
Regional Development in World Society →
The theoretical research programme examining how world-societal processes become regionally configured and shape possibilities and constraints for development.
Society–Nature & Climate →
Research on how ecological conditions, climate governance and global environmental change become regionally relevant within world society.
Extractive Communities & Territorial Relations →
Resources, organizations, livelihoods and differentiated participation within regional configurations.
Policy, Evaluation & Applied Research →
Research on how knowledge, public policy, planning and organizational capacities shape attempts to influence regional transformation.