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 mining cooperatives 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 persistent commitment to nation and nationalism is a shared feature of left-wing and right-wing politics in Bolivia, illustrating how bodies, identities, and resources fit into this complex political matrix.

Andrea Marston is Assistant Professor of Geography at Rutgers University.

List of Abbreviations  ix
Preface. Thieves of Patria  xi
Acknowledgments  xvii
Introduction. Fault Lines: Mining Cooperatives in Plurinational Bolivia  1
1. Subterranean Property: Geology, Theology, and the Law  31
2. Material Fix: Making Mining Cooperatives  59
3. Tangled Veins: Of Tubers and Tin  90
4. Flesh and Ore: Graded and Degraded Matters  123
5. Industrial Ruins: Matters of Time  163
6. Geology of Patria: Patrimony, Patronage, Violence  193
Afterword: Historical Matters and New Eruptions  223
Notes  237
References  255
Index  279