The Labor of Extraction in Latin America

Natural resource extraction and primary commodity export remain persistent features of the Latin American economy. This book investigates the power of labor in extractive sectors starting in the 1980s. It shows how labor shapes national export sectors, economies, politics, and societies more broadly, and resists extractivism through organizing.

A 2024 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title

Natural resource extraction and primary commodity export remain persistent features of the Latin American economy. This edited volume traces the power of labor in extractive sectors in Latin America starting in the 1980s and shows how labor shapes national export sectors, economies, politics, and societies more broadly.

Kristin Ciupa and Jeffery R. Webber bring together a team of international experts who look at labor in several extractive sectors—including oil and gas, mining and agriculture, and migrant labor. They present a variety of viewpoints and case studies, exploring themes of the strategic organizing potential of extractive workers, the rise of informal labor and its impact on organizing and worker solidarity, and migrant labor-power as extraction. The book analyzes relationships between workers, extractive companies, states, political parties, national social sectors, and global commodity markets. The Labor of Extraction in Latin America puts the question of labor organizing to the forefront of discussions on Latin America’s ongoing history of extractive capitalism, its effects on nature, and resistance against it.

Contributions by: Fernando Cazón, Kristin Ciupa, Aleida Hernández Cervantes, Phillip A. Hough, Christopher Little, Omar Manky, Andrea Marston, Viviana Patroni, Guido Starosta, Jeffery R. Webber, Anna Zalik