Frames of extractivism: Small-scale goldmining formalization and state violence in Colombia

Colombia's economy largely relies on an extractivist logic that increasingly focuses on industrial mineral extraction. The industry is regularly depicted as a means to bring economic development, to severe the ties of illegally armed groups to mineral extraction, and to bring peace and prosperity to mining regions in a period of macro-political transition. Yet, contrary to this plan, mining-related violence, and more specifically state-sanctioned violence, has intensified in mining regions. This article interrogates this state of affairs, drawing on Judith Butler's notion of the ‘frame’, which helps us apprehend the political work that forms of Artisanal Small-scale Mining (ASM) stigmatization set in motion in terms of legitimizing state violence. Based on a combination of ethnographic data from two mining towns in Northeastern Antioquia, interviews with state agents at different administrative scales, and the analysis of legal and policy documents, we bring out two frames pertaining ASM that help shine a new light on the violence-extraction nexus in Colombia. The first consists of a progressive conflation of ASM with informality, and of informality with criminality, and the second posits ASM in contradistinction with a more desirable large-scale industrial mining industry. We argue that these frames are part of the (re)definition of legitimate state violence, which seems to have intensified over time, which we find particularly striking in the Colombian post-demobilization context. We find these to also echo dynamics in mining contexts not usually considered as “conflict contexts” and propose that they are useful for rethinking the relationship between extractive agendas and development more widely.