Publication Date
5-2021
Date of Final Oral Examination (Defense)
3-8-2021
Type of Culminating Activity
Thesis
Degree Title
Master of Arts in History
Department
History
Supervisory Committee Chair
Lisa M. Brady, Ph.D.
Supervisory Committee Member
Shaun Nichols, Ph.D.
Supervisory Committee Member
Erik Hadley, Ph.D.
Abstract
The Amungme and Kamoro managed their environments for thousands of years in what is now Papua, Indonesia. In the late 1960s, seeking foreign capital to boost the nation’s economy, the president of Indonesia signed a contract with Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold, which by 1988 began mining one of the world’s largest gold mines with almost no environmental regulations in place. Freeport’s close relationship to the Suharto regime resulted in the company’s ability to evade consequences for environmental and social damage. In the 1990s, NGOs began publicly criticizing the company’s substandard environmental and social record, pressuring the company through negative international attention. Freeport hurried to shield its reputation by investing in environmental management plans and addressing the social tensions with the indigenous population. Although many have addressed Freeport’s involvement in the abuses leveled on the environment and the indigenous populations in the mining concession, there is yet to be an analysis of this relationship through the lens of environmental justice history. While demonstrating how the political, material, and cultural levels of an environmental analysis aptly describe the relationship between Freeport, the environment, and the indigenous people, this thesis will argue that Freeport’s attempts at remediation were simply a veneer to ward off critics against the mining operations; all the while the company’s social and environmental records worsened over time. Freeport disrupted the lives of the indigenous people, who nevertheless showed complexity and agency in the face of great change.
DOI
10.18122/td.1801.boisestate
Recommended Citation
Dawson, Kole A., "Freeport, the Environment, and the Amungme: An Environmental History of the Freeport McMorRan Copper and Gold Mine in Papua, Indonesia" (2021). Boise State University Theses and Dissertations. 1801.
10.18122/td.1801.boisestate