Can sustainable work be decolonized? Lessons from mining-affected communities

Introduction

This Special Issue of the International Labour Review explores the conceptual, normative, and political dimensions of sustainable work. In our contribution, we look to narratives surrounding this notion as sites of struggle relating to distinct visions of work and sustainability. Drawing on ongoing research in mining-affected communities in Brazil and Canada, we examine how the conceptions that stem from mainstream policies interact with other understandings and practices—especially those that emanate from marginalized perspectives. The latter, we suggest, offer us glimpses of a decolonial conception of sustainable work.

Key Idea: Decolonial Perspectives on Sustainable Work

Mainstream policy frameworks tend to define sustainable work in terms of “green jobs” and inclusion in capitalist labour markets. Paradoxically, these frameworks often legitimize economic sectors and practices that have questionable sustainability credentials. Case in point: resource extraction and large-scale mining, both of which are increasingly characterized as sustainable and as a source of “green” jobs, especially when they involve so-called “critical” minerals required for post-fossil-fuel energy transitions. Crucially, such framing ignores the colonial legacies and the well-demonstrated environmental and social violence of extractive development, including its interference with other livelihood strategies.

Can sustainable work be understood in a way that escapes or directly confronts this sort of instrumentalization and capture? We propose—by reference to decolonial scholarship from North and South Americas—that such an alternative conception must be grounded in values of reciprocity, care for people, community and non-human nature, and recognition of livelihoods beyond capitalist structures. We look to our two case studies for articulations of conceptions that may approximate these contours.

Case Studies: Contrasting Narratives from Brazil and Canada

Sudbury, a mining city that was once internationally recognized as a world-leading source of sulphur pollution, is now known for its regreening efforts. It remains embedded in extractive industry logics, but both governmental and corporate actors like Vale, a Brazilian mining giant, now cite regreening there as an example of their improved practices. Engagement of local Indigenous nations through mining partnerships and agreements on training and jobs further lends credibility to these sustainability efforts. Although some community groups articulate other sustainability visions, overall the narrative that resource extraction and jobs in the mining industry can be sustainable and necessary for a green transition thrives here.

By contrast, in Antônio Pereira—the inclusion of marginalized populations and ecological remediation dimensions are still peripheral to corporate discourses—even though Vale advertises its role in regreening Sudbury. A district of Brazil’s Ouro Preto, Antônio Pereira has long been impacted by large-scale mining, suffering the social, environmental, and economic harms related to high-risk tailings storage and, most recently, forced relocation of some of its population due to Vale’s Doutor Dam decommissioning. The district’s predominantly Black population has drawn little economic benefit from extractivist development. Here, resistance movements—especially those led by women activists—contest the mainstream by highlighting alternative visions of sustainability based on care and land-based economies.

Why This Matters

In our paper, we explore how these competing visions resonate with narratives advanced by other actors—unions representing workers in the mining industry, Antônio Pereira’s ‘garimpeiros’ or artisanal miners, Indigenous-led business groups advocating for economic inclusion, and other community and environmental activists—and highlight how geopolitical and body-political locations matter to this process, as do particular place-based demands.

As we show, the mainstream concept of sustainable work can be manipulated to maintain colonial capitalist structures of inequality, environmental racism, and social exclusion under the banner of “sustainable mining.” Crucially, this concept not only subordinates but is irreconcilable with the enduring ground-normative principles and praxes based on reciprocity, care for human and non-human life, and community reproduction that we also found in the narratives of some actors. These latter principles shape the notion of sustainable work away from its market-based understandings and thus provide alternative grounds for guiding policy and regulatory processes in directions that do not reinforce enduring patterns of coloniality. However, they need to be heard, recognized, and taken seriously by policy for that to be possible.

Conclusion: Toward a More Inclusive Understanding of Sustainable Work

Decoloniality is a continuous process of anti-colonial struggle that entails detaching epistemically and politically from colonial patterns of power. This is a particular challenge when we refer to the meanings of sustainable work, as coloniality stifles alternative imaginaries. The dominant approaches to sustainable work have already acknowledged the need to improve ecological sustainability and recognise work as a wider set of practices. How can we further shift sustainability frameworks to reflect the lived experiences and needs of communities most affected by extractivism?