ABSTRACT
Large-scale mining projects have been associated with both the construction of infrastructure and changes in local spatial mobility patterns. However, few studies have paid attention to the specific role that the infrastructures of mining play in shaping spatial mobility. How do infrastructures shape spatial mobility in the context of large mining projects? In answering this question, this chapter analyzes how accommodation arrangements, viewed as a form of infrastructure, have shaped the spatial mobility of workers and displaced people over time. This chapter argues that infrastructure constitutes the substratum that structures everyday spatial mobility. In developing this argument, this chapter shows how the gradual shift from concentrated service networks in camps to the establishment of accommodation services in cities and mining suburbs is associated with a dispersion of people’s daily flows, as well as an expansion in the regional extent of this mobility. The analysis draws on two qualitative case studies of territories with large-scale mining projects in the Andes: Espinar in Peru and Los Andes in Chile.
