Social Sciences Division
Ph.D. Candidate
Graduate
Merrill College Academic Building
123
Merrill/Crown Faculty Services
My research focuses on how anti-mining struggles waged by ordinary people over 25 years in Guatemala and Honduras forced the stagnation of the metal-mining industry in each country, despite hostile political conditions and the opposition of powerful transnational companies. In the process race, gender, and democracy became central terrains of struggle, their meanings being contested and reshaped from above and below. Answering how these movements put extractivism on the defensive provides empirical and theoretical lessons on power and organization in social movements, the political vulnerabilities of mining capital, the contradictions of the capitalist state, and the strategies that elites take to try to dissolve opposition.
MA: Political Science, Northern Arizona University, 2019
BA: International Affairs, Northern Arizona University, 2013
Extractivism; Latin American politics, especially Central America; critical political economy; semiosis and cultural political economy; contentious politics and social movements; political ecology and environmental politics; territorial and subnational politics; Indigenous politics; participation and participatory institutions; the capitalist state; hegemony and consciousness; elite strategies; labor; repression and violence; natural resources; race, gender, and capitalism; left parties; power from below.
Political economy; comparative politics; Latin American politics; cultural political economy modern political thought; social movements; political ecology, environmental politics, and environmental justice; labor politics; global politics; international political economy.
Articles in Refereed Journals
Edenhofer, N. (2022). “Mining Boom and Contentious Politics across Central America: Elites, Movements, and Party Systems”. Journal of Latin American Studies, 54(2), 253-281. doi:10.1017/S0022216X22000207
Articles Under Review in Refereed Journals
(Revise and Resubmit) Edenhofer, N. Manuscript under review in The Extractive Industries and Society
Book Chapters
Chiasson-LeBel, T., Artiga-Purcell, A., Edenhofer, N., & Ortega Uribe, T. (Forthcoming). “Anti-Extractivism Contesting and Empowering Resource Nationalism in the Americas” In J. S. Ovadia, R. Saunders, & J. Nem Singh (Eds.), Handbook of Resource Nationalism. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Book Reviews
Edenhofer, N. (2024). “Rose J. Spalding, Breaking Ground: From Extraction Booms to Mining Bans in Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. Tables, figures, bibliography, index, 308 pp.; Hardcover and ebook $83. Latin American Politics and Society, 66(4), 153–156. https://doi.org/10.1017/lap.2024.22
Public Reports
Edenhofer, N. (Forthcoming). Consulta De Vecinos De Asunción Mita: Autonomía local ante la amenaza de la minería metálica en Guatemala [Asunción Mita's Consulta de Vecinos: Local Autonomy Against the Threat of Metal Mining in Guatemala]. Alianza Centroamericana Frente a la Minería. San Salvador.
Edenhofer, N., and J. Alejandro Artiga-Purcell. (2022). Salton Sea Initiative Track One: Measuring and Developing Inclusive, Equitable and Sustainable Economies. Alianza Coachella Valley, Institute for Social Transformation UC Santa Cruz. Available at https://transform.ucsc.edu/salton-sea-sustainable-economies/
Edenhofer, N., Artiga-Purcell, A., Benner, C., Ramakrishnan, K., Rettberg, G., Tamayose, B., Huazano, S., Paz, M., & Paz, S. (2021). Our Salton Sea: Where Theory Meets Practice on Inclusive Economic Development. Center For Social Innovation, UC Riverside. Available at https://socialinnovation.ucr.edu/salton-sea-policy-brief
Translations
Irastorza, X. (2025). “SDR Amazon: A Crack in the Colossus” (N. Edenhofer, Trans.). Long-Haul Mag, 2. https://longhaulmag.com/sdr-amazon-a-crack-in-the-colossus/