ABSTRACT
In the period 2000-12, high prices on the world market and increasing demand for raw materials, accompanied by insecurity on the financial markets, led to a worldwide resource boom. This boom was notably reflected in the mining sector. Increasing investment and production resulted in a historically unique level of growth in this sector. Up until today, numerous studies have investigated single cases of conflicts over mining in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. However, hardly any attempts have been undertaken to systematize contemporary conflicts over mining and to gain insight across nation-states on how the global resource boom has led to local conflicts. The conflict constellations depend on previous forms of land use, property relations, and land right regimes in the respective mining areas. Large-scale mining does not expand into ‘unused’ land or ‘empty spaces’. Artisanal mining thus sometimes involuntarily provides initial exploration for the companies free of charge.
