Alloyed waterscapes: mining and water at the nexus of corporate social responsibility, resource nationalism, and small-scale mining

This article reviews the relationship between mining and water governance with an emphasis on Latin America. Focusing on the last decade, it identifies three major shifts in global mineral relations: (1) changes to corporation-community relations, most noticeable in corporate social responsibility projects; (2) changes to state-society relations, where there has been a simultaneous strengthening of international support for community rights and a reassertion of the nation-state through so-called 'resource nationalism'; and (3) challenges to the notion of 'community,' which must now stretch to encompass small-scale and artisanal miners. While examining each of these thematic shifts, the paper draws out the relationship between mining and water, suggesting that attention to the 'alloyed waterscape' of global mining would provide a compelling conceptual lens through which to explore dynamics that transcend scales and institutional divides. (C) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.