Description: This book traces the history of Indigenous mining in southern Bolivia from Inka times to the present using archaeological and historical sources. It argues that small-scale mineral production can only be understood in relation to large-scale mining in the context of colonialism and its aftermath.
Review Quotes: "In this book, Van Buren uses archaeological and historical research to trace the long history of mining in Bolivia, an industry that for centuries has occupied a critical space in reinforcing colonial practices and structural inequalities in Andean nations. Her approach moves from easy equations of past and present institutions, readings that reinforce a colonizer and colonized dichotomy, or narratives predicated on the erasure of Indigenous practices. Instead, Van Buren tells a complex and intertwined story of mining at different scales, highlighting that the persistence of Indigenous technologies and values can be traced through the materiality of the institutions that sought to eradicate them."--Carla Hernández Garavito, University of California, Santa Cruz
"Mining does not just disrupt, it destroys. Yet despite this fact we see the miner's relentless quest for dignity, the refiner's instinct of workmanship, the resurgent ideal of reciprocity. Miners are not criminals, but at base, mining is an unforgivable, criminal act, a theft, one that we all rely on every day. Or that is one possible takeaway from this important, richly documented, and uniquely structured book."--Kris Lane, Technology and Culture "Van Buren's Silver "Thieves" marks a critical intervention in the history of mining in Bolivia. She presents a dialectical relation between artisanal mineral production and large-scale mining, focusing on the trajectory of independent miners, the technology they employed, and their relationship to large-scale mining. The author recognizes that reductionist historicism regarding mineral exploitation in what is now southern Bolivia endures and attributes the flow of specie to the Spanish colonial imposition of forced labor on the Indigenous population and the introduction of European mining technology."--Zsófia Johanna Szőke, Journal of Anthropological Research "Van Buren offers a blueprint of how to place small-scale mining at the center of the story. . . . Van Buren's book offers an important way of thinking about scholars' responsibilities to the communities we work in and write with, and of doing history in ways that chart healthier, more dignified futures for all of us."--Allison Bigelow, Historical Archaeology