Faced with mounting resistance against mining, neoliberal governance resorts to polarising strategies that delegitimise the heterogenous positions people hold regarding mining. In this paper, we contrast and complicate these dichotomies with the lived experiences on the ground in Kyrgyzstan. We focus on the ‘Taldy-Bulak Levoberezhny’ gold mine near the town of Orlovka that has been lauded by the state and business community as a paragon of company-community ‘cooperation’. We question how the gold mine has come to be an exemplary case of cooperation in a conflict-rife sector. Based on behavioural experiments, surveys, and in-depth inquiry, we follow and unpack entanglements of valuations, discourses and practices that have repackaged Orlovka from a former Soviet mining town in depression into a putative model of progress. Our interdisciplinary account unravels the contradictory processes of re/making extractive frontiers and managing resistance to extractivist expansion that interweave neoliberal practices with nationalist discourses. Beneath the discourses praising Orlovka, we find a community that has never stopped resisting despite consenting to the gold mine. The extractive entanglements we unearth exemplify the diversity of exigencies and aspirations behind resisting, negotiating and/or allowing mining while attesting to the diversified portfolio of tactics that silence and delegitimise these life concerns.

面对越来越多的对采矿的抵制，新自由主义治理诉诸两极分化的策略，使人们在采矿方面持有的异质立场合法化。在本文中，我们将这些二分法与吉尔吉斯斯坦当地的生活经历进行对比并使其复杂化。我们专注于奥尔洛夫卡镇附近的“Taldy-Bulak Levoberezhny”金矿，该矿被国家和商界誉为公司与社区“合作”的典范。我们质疑金矿如何成为冲突频发部门合作的典范。基于行为实验、调查和深入探究，我们追踪并解开估值、话语和实践的纠葛，这些纠缠将奥尔洛夫卡从萧条的前苏联矿业城镇重新包装为假定的进步模型。我们的跨学科描述揭示了重新/制造提取边界和管理对将新自由主义实践与民族主义话语交织在一起的提取主义扩张的抵抗的矛盾过程。在赞美奥尔洛夫卡的话语之下，我们发现一个社区尽管同意金矿，但从未停止抵抗。我们发现的开采纠缠体现了抵制、谈判和/或允许采矿背后的紧急情况和愿望的多样性，同时证明了使这些生活问题沉默和合法化的多样化策略组合。我们发现一个社区尽管同意金矿，但从未停止抵抗。我们发现的开采纠缠体现了抵制、谈判和/或允许采矿背后的紧急情况和愿望的多样性，同时证明了使这些生活问题沉默和合法化的多样化策略组合。我们发现一个社区尽管同意金矿，但从未停止抵抗。我们发现的开采纠缠体现了抵制、谈判和/或允许采矿背后的紧急情况和愿望的多样性，同时证明了使这些生活问题沉默和合法化的多样化策略组合。