Power and crisis. Mining cycles of exploitation and non-explotation in Cerro de San Pedro, México, and their contemporary echoes (1950-2009)

Abstract

The current paper studies how some segments of the population of Cerro de San Pedro, a mining town in central Mexico, perceived the alternation of marked cycles of exploitation and non-exploitation of mineral deposits in the area during 1950 and 2009. Fragments of interviews conducted between 2007 and 2009 are transcribed, in order to analyze how the inhabitants of the region explain to others and themselves these cycles of investment and divestment. Undoubtedly tied to the world economy, those cycles affected them throughout the 20th century. Moreover taking into account the current problem of Cerro de San Pedro, immersed in a conflict related to the opposition to open-pit gold mining, an evaluation of the elements of an alleged “mining tradition” that still have an impact on contemporary local disputes is presented.