Gender and mining extractivism in Mexico: socio-environmental repercussions for rural communities

Abstract

During the last decades, the rural spaces of Latin America and, in particular our country, have suffered an accelerated mining extractivism due to the increase in the price of metals. Therefore, the objective of this analysis is to document and describe the social, political, cultural and ecological impacts that rural communities have suffered due to mining. Under the assumptions of the qualitative research approach, as well as the dialectical method and the feminist gender perspective as the main theoretical references, it is concluded that mining in Mexico corresponds to an extractivist model that appropriates non-renewable natural resources, uses rural inhabitants as cheap labor and increases gender inequalities by organizing a new patriarchal order that increases the vulnerability of women. Finally, the extraction of large amounts of water and the subsequent contamination of groundwater, soil pollution with heavy metals, various types of diseases that afflict rural populations, as well as countless social conflicts between communities and mining companies, would be some of the consequences of this model in Mexico.