Frontline narratives on sustainable development challenges/opportunities in the ‘illegal’ gold mining region of Madre de Dios, Peru: Informing an integrative collaborative response

•We use stakeholder narratives to inform an integrative response to ASM, which has received less attention by scholars.•The work is situated at the intersection of sustainable development (SD) and global ASM formalization struggles.•Narrative data from actors – including from ASM miners – offer perspectives in their own words, lending power and nuance.•Data suggest an integrative collaborative SD approach can work, rather than it being imposed – lending validity to it in a complex setting.