Focusing on a controversial gold mining project in Chile, this article examines
how engineers and other mining professionals perceive and help shape
Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. Compensation agreements, environmental
management, and community relations programs rest on what I call a logic
of equivalence that makes the environmental consequences of mining activity
commensurate with the mining companies’ mitigation plans. For example, legal
codes enable engineers to measure, compare, and reconcile the costs and benefits
of a project. However, the law is neither fixed nor uncontestable, and companies
must respond to increased public scrutiny and the growing demands of communities,
governments, and international actors. In Chile, campaigns against mining
focused on the presence of glaciers at the mine site and the project’s possible effects
on water availability. By introducing new moral dimensions to debates over
corporate responsibility, these campaigns challenged established strategies of
commensuration and existing ethical guideposts.
GOLD MINING ACTIVITY AND GOLD MINING HERITAGE OF A. KH. BENKENDORF
