The subterranean state

The municipal work of artisanal miners in the northern Peruvian Andes

Bibliographic Data

ID13068142
AuthorsLuis Arturo Ávila Meléndez (0000-0002-4219-5753, Western University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume24
Pages101717-101717
Publication date2025-07-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Extractive Industries and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2214-790X • E-ISSN: 2214-7918
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.exis.2025.101717
OpenAlexW4412436338
LanguageEN
References cited42

Miner-mayors assembled their mining organization with the municipal institution. • Miner-mayors reconciled a constellation of individual and collective aspirations. • The mining-municipal coalition became more complex as the mining organization consolidated. • The mining-municipal coalition expanded the capacities and legitimacy of the miner-mayors. • The mining-municipal coalition functions as a subterranean state that operates under a state-like guise but is functionally dependent on an informal extractive network. Since the mid-2000s, residents of Algamarca—a rural locality in the northern Peruvian Andes—have been extracting minerals informally within the concession of a foreign mining company. Since then, most mayors of the municipalidad de centro poblado or village municipality of Algamarca have been directly involved in this economy. Based on ethnographic research, this article’s main objective is to analyze the synergy between their roles as mayors and as informal miners, as well as the influence of artisanal mining networks on their performance and capacities as authorities of a parasitic institution located at the lowest level of the Peruvian state structure. The research reveals how these miner-mayors managed to assemble their mining organization with the precarious municipal body, reconciling a constellation of individual and collective aspirations. As the mining organization consolidated over time, the political coalition became more sophisticated, providing revenues, political networks, and technical expertise that proved essential for the municipality’s survival and the political reach of its authorities. The result was the constitution of a ‘subterranean state’: an emerging political formation that, while officially operating as a state institution, is sustained by an informal structure of extraction that serves as its foundation. This political configuration not only feeds on the resources extracted from the subsoil, but also derives its continuity from arrangements operating beneath the formal circuits of state governance. This study enriches research on the politics of artisanal and small-scale mining operators, who are often simplified to disruptive and anti-state actors

Archaeology · Environmental protection · Geography · Political science · State (computer science · Work (physics · Engineering · Extractivism and Socioeconomic Issues · Mining and Resource Management