This study connects the organizational structures, environmental knowledge and cultural practices of amber miners, artisans and middlemen across the amber world of Chiapas, Mexico. I´m particularly interested in exploring the production chain of amber by conducting an intersected analysis of the movement of the resin, considering how class, gender, ethnicity, and other social belongings leave their mark onto every piece. By paying equal attention to the global market of this fossil resin, the increasing interest of state authorities to regulate the market, and to the deteriorating conditions of miners I discuss how ethnicity, industry, and land-based practices create new narratives of the future for the whole community -- narratives that include ecological devastation, forced migration and hope for a new amber burst.
This research will also focus on the (re)creation of ethnic futures in Simojovel de Allende, Chiapas, rethinking the Ejido (communaly-owned land, in which the amber mines are) as a new historical relationship with older environmental cosmologies and the influence of the global amber market in redefining everyday temporalities (mining, craftsmanship, selling; belonging, labor aspirations, expectations, fear, hope). In sum, I aim to relate the different values of the mineral, in spiritual, commercial and even political terms, highlighting the power structures that intersect the entire global market, from gender relations in local families to global policies that encourage its production and distribution.
Finally, I´m connecting government attempts to regulate amber extraction, distribution and prices for the last 20 years alongside the promotion of amber craft as a unique national product, while neglecting miners’ conditions, ignoring fossil laws, and leaving environmental responsibilities to local organizations.
Delázkar Noel Rizo Gutiérrez