Illegal artisanal and small-scale mining practices: re-thinking the harm

Abstract Illegal and small-scale mining that occurs is often only seen as legal practices. Consequently, the government’s response towards it is more repressive ways, even negligent. This paper suggests another perspective in understanding these practices, especially in questioning who or what has been harmed, how and why it happened this way. Findings found that the concept of environment, including environmental damage, is a social construction that can be selected and filtered by the public, to determine which ones will be raised and become an important issue in the public. Although the detrimental effects of illegal mining are evident both socially and environmentally, there are social processes (interpretation and contestation) involved in determining the definition, scale, impact, and risk. Talking about why to this day illegal mining cases still occur and tend to be ignored is because basically the definition of environmental harm is a matter of social construction and is openly interpreted and contested by the definition.