Abstract

What do extractivisms extract and what they produce? The present article attempts to answer this question by critically analyzing the relationship between bodies, labor and mining principally under the Chilean neoliberal model, in the largest open pit state owned copper mine on the planet: Chuquicamata. I consider a biopolitical approach to understand this relationship focusing on the concept of “coppered bodies,” which investigates how mining subjectivities are articulated in and from the most intimate spheres of those who produce the “Chilean salary.” Furthermore, inspired by political ecology developments, I connect this biopolitics with the idea of “modes of appropriation.” Thus, trying to enrich debates on extractivisms in Latin America through the consideration of the docile, but also potentially liberating, perspective of the workers involved, I suggest that the coppered bodies—as productive forces—are a fundamental piece to understand the copper extractivist mode of appropriation.