Introduction

Abstract

This chapter introduces the book’s key actors, claims, and theoretical contributions. Mining cooperatives are collectives of small-scale miners who supported former president Evo Morales’s left-leaning government and participated in the formation of the Plurinational State, yet they are widely regarded as thieves because they derive personal profits from subterranean resources that are the legal inheritance of all Bolivians. The relationship among mining cooperatives, resource nationalism, and the Plurinational State is explored through a material history of the subterranean, an approach that draws inspiration from historical materialism and new materialities while contributing to debates about vertical and volumetric space. After elaborating this approach, the chapter traces Bolivian history from the early colonial to the contemporary era with a focus on race, nation, and subterranean resources. Finally, it discusses the book’s methodology, introduces the main field site (the region of Norte Potosí), and outlines the subsequent chapters.