Overview

In Subterranean Matters, Andrea Marston examines the ongoing history of Bolivian mining cooperatives, an economic formation that has been central to Bolivian politics and to the country's economy. Marston outlines how mining cooperatives occupy a contradictory place in Bolivian politics. They were major backers of left-wing president Evo Morales in 2006 and participated significantly in the crafting of the constitution that would declare Bolivia a plurinational state. At the same time, many Bolivians regard them as thieves because they derive personal profits from the subterranean mineral resources that are the legal inheritance of all Bolivians. Through extensive fieldwork underground in Bolivian cooperative mines, Marston explores how these miners-and the subterranean spaces they occupy-embody the tensions at the heart of Bolivia's plurinational project. Marston shows how a shared feature of left-wing and right-wing politics in Bolivia is a persistent commitment to nation and nationalism, illustrating how bodies, identities, and resources fit into this complex political matrix.

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9781478020899

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Reviews

“In this superb study, Andrea Marston follows Bolivia’s cooperative miners into the spaces, materials, and sedimented histories of the subterranean to write a brilliant account of the tensions and competing visions of the plurinational state. Stunningly original and brimming with insight, Subterranean Matters challenges us to reconsider how we understand the fraught relation between nature and nation in Latin America. This is material history at its very best.” -- Bruce Braun, author of * The Intemperate Rainforest: Nature, Culture, and Power on Canada’s West Coast *

Author Information

Andrea Marston is Assistant Professor of Geography at Rutgers University.

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