Seeing empathy as resistance: a conjunctural photovoice study of women and mining in Indonesia.

Mining is increasingly under the scholarly microscope for its social and environmental impacts, including its uneven gender impacts. To study resistance of women across two communities affected by a long-established nickel mining and smelting operation in Indonesia, we paired photovoice with a discussion on conjunctures in the photo-stories. Photovoice is a visual ethnographic method that combines photography and storytelling to explore answers to research questions centered on how research participants make sense of their social worlds. By adding a discussion of conjunctures found in the photo-stories, we noted the combined methods facilitated empathetic responses and cross-community solidarity, a powerful antidote to the hyper-individualism and social discord fostered by mining interests in the neoliberal capitalist period. As Indonesia plans to open dozens more nickel mines and smelters, like the one in our study, in the rush to supply nickel for electric vehicle batteries, our study challenges scholars to look for empathy and solidarity. Seeing and exercising empathy and solidarity are important as extractive interests are expected to continue divide and conquer tactics to secure land and resources for exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]