"We are the Living Dead": The Gendered Impacts of Open-Pit Mining in the Dominican Republic
Abstract
Despite a rhetorical commitment to enhancing community well-being, Canadian mining corporations have a history marked by ecological degradation and human rights violations, with women experience disproportionately negative impacts. While Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a desired topography for open-pit mining, the geographical area of the Dominican Republic has been largely absent from the literature. As such, this dissertation, rooted in decolonial ecofeminism, enacted a critical narrative inquiry with 7 women from the Dominican Republic to explore the gendered impacts of open-pit mining on their health and well-being.
This thesis is composed of six chapters, with chapter one introducing the rationale, guiding research questions, key terminology and researcher reflexivity. Chapter two consists of a scoping review which synthesizes the peer-reviewed literature regarding the gendered impacts of mining in LAC, revealing gaps which initiated this research. Chapter three provides an in-depth discussion of the methods, methodologies, paradigmatic understandings and reflexive insights of the research process. Chapter four presents a thematic analysis which reveals the seven main themes that arose from the critical narrative inquiry. These themes include ecological destruction; physical health and well-being; emotional health and well-being; sociocultural erosion; deception and corruption; systemic forces of power; and resistance and repression. Chapter five consists of a critical analysis of the findings, illuminating significant contributions, discussing methodological insights and presenting the dissemination of research findings. The concluding chapter reveals the broader implications of the findings and future directions of research in the field of gender and mining.
Through a decolonial ecofeminist perspective, this dissertation situates women’s narratives within systemic forces of power and illustrates the severity of gendered experiences caused and perpetuated by open-pit mining projects. This work makes a new and important contribution to a growing body of literature regarding gender and extraction, disrupting dominant narratives of transnational extraction and promoting health and well-being for mining impacts communities.