Mining Community at Anvil Hill: State, Civil Society and Global Governance
Linda Connor, Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies; Nick Higginbotham and Sonia Freeman, Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Newcastle
Currently, coal fired energy is central to the Australian economy. Increasing awareness of the contribution of coal combustion to global warming has opened up new lines of dispute in public discourse, particularly in ‘affected zones’, bringing nature and human agency into relationship in multiple socio-political forms and scales. As the largest coal exporting region in Australia, the Hunter Valley has become a focus of intensifying protests against the expansion of the industry. Drawing on the example of the recently approved Anvil Hill open-cut mine, this paper examines the tactical practices of coal mining companies, industrial organisations, state government, and rural residents/producers, in conflicts that have become part of the change agenda of organisations of global environmental governance such as Greenpeace.
