Lorena Campuzano Duque

Ph.D. from Binghamton University. My research examines ecological relationships and environmental change associated with gold mining and its intensification during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Antioquia, Colombia. I analyze the conflict between what became known as artisanal mining, foreign companies, and the state from 1820 to 1952 studying the environmental, technological, and social transformations of one of Colombia’s most important mining zones, Northeastern Antioquia. I follow miners and engineers into the alluvial and underground mines, the farms, and the towns before, during, and after the emergence of underground and industrialized gold mining at the end of the century to understand how gold mining has shaped and been shaped by nature, knowledge, place, the nation-state, and the social exclusion mining regions have endured.
I am interested in how the interrelationship of science, environment, and vernacular practices shape the way Latin American states and people approach to nature and the use of resources.