Power, fragility and corporate social responsibility: An ethnography of a mining corporation in Colombia

Thesis

This thesis is an ethnography of multinational gold mining corporation AngloGold Ashanti in Colombia (AGAC). It examines how a corporation engages with the norms and ideas of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the role these play in the company’s response to mining resistance. A multi-sited ethnography, it follows the company’s CSR practices from its headquarters in Bogotá to its project sites in the departments of Tolima and Antioquia. Based on fieldwork with AGAC as well as anti-mining activists, it provides a unique account of the polarised dynamics surrounding AGAC’s activities in Colombia. The first part of the thesis describes AGAC’s arrival in Colombia and the establishment and evolution of its CSR programmes, against the background of an emerging anti-mining movement which targeted its principal project, ‘La Colosa’. The second part focuses on the anti-mining movement’s mobilisation of the legal mechanism of consulta popular as a means to ban mining, which contributed to the indefinite suspension of La Colosa.

This thesis challenges the monolithic image of corporate omnipotence and impenetrability by uncovering frictions and contradictions characteristic of the inner workings of a corporation. Examining the dynamics between AGAC and its opponents, it highlights the anti-mining movement’s capacity to control the terms of the public debate on mining, thereby revealing the vulnerability of the corporation in the discursive domain. It argues a need to nuance common critiques of CSR which suggest that corporations are simply able to appropriate the discursive power of their opponents to their own ends. Adopting CSR narratives, the thesis shows, did not appear to strengthen the company’s position in the Colombian mining debate. Nevertheless, CSR’s discursive power was visible inside the company, where it helped shape the beliefs and convictions of employees, who zealously defended the corporation in the face of resistance.

Authors: Hoff, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-ko2v5mmog
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Anthropology of corporations; Ethnography; Colombia; Resistance; Mining
• Subjects: Anthropology; Latin America; Socio-Legal Studies