Impeding metal-mining expansion in post-coup Honduras: Capital-state-resistance dynamics and the contradictions between force and hegemony

Abstract

Metal-mining extractivism is on the defensive in Honduras. Following the 2009 coup against President Manuel Zelaya, all signs pointed towards an expansion of metal-mining: radical neoliberalization; authoritarian governance; mining policy reform; hundreds of new concessions; domestic and transnational capital interest; and violence with impunity against environmentalists. Despite this, no post-coup metal-mining projects were exporting by the end of 2024. Relying on 47 interviews conducted in Honduras, GIS analysis, and export data, I argue that the strategic relations between capital, the state, and territorial movements undermined capitalist hegemony around mining, thereby undermining stability for mining capital. Pro-mining interests could generate neither material compromises nor compelling discourses necessary to construct hegemony in the territories containing mining concessions. Instead, mining companies opted for force over consent-building strategies. Resistance movements filled the discursive gap, weaving anti-mining discourses into in-depth territorial organizing. The state, debilitated by neoliberal reforms and lacking sufficient autonomy from capital, could not impose hegemony-supporting compromises between companies and communities. As hegemony faltered, movements disrupted mining projects, generating investment risk that caused metal-mining stagnation. This research shows that organized, ordinary people are central to impeding extractivism; impunity does not equal powerlessness of resistance; and coercion can undermine, rather than support, capitalist and extractivist hegemony.