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Accepted Paper:

Indigeneity, environmentalism and resistance: mining and power structures in the northern Peruvian Andes  
Kyra Grieco (EHESS)

Paper short abstract:

This presentation examines competing representations of socio-environmental conflict found amongst local activists and communities affected by mining projects in the northern Peruvian highlands. Its aim will be to draw attention to the impact of mining activities on local power structures.

Paper long abstract:

Two decades of mining bonanza have substantially modified the Peruvian economical and social landscape, sparking unpreceding growth alongside widespread social and environmental conflict. In this context, growing dissent from extractive activities has come to assign a central role to local rural communities in the evaluation of and struggle against corporate interest. Moreover, since the early 2000s a progressive indigenization of anti-mining discourse has contributed to create a strong correlation in popular discourse between indigeneity, environmentalism and resistance. But what effects does this moral association produce on the field, when confronted with the inevitable complexity of local responses to mining? What particular means and constraints does it provide for affected communities negotiating with corporate actors? This presentation shall focus on interpretations and appropriations of the "indigenous environmentalist" figure, as observed in local responses to two major mining projects located in the northern Peruvian highlands. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted amongst local activists and indigenous communities directly affected by extraction, it will outline competing representations of socio-environmental conflict engendered by mining activities and the role assigned to indigenous communities herein. Tensions between local actors concerning these representations and the concrete outcomes they entail will provide insight to conflicting priorities at play. The aim will be to draw attention to the impact generated by mining activities on local power structures, so as to stimulate reflection as to the place for maneuver, and the emancipatory potential available to affected communities in the Andean Peruvian context.

Panel P16
Applying anthropology in the extractive industries: making the discipline work for indigenous communities affected by multinational resource extraction
  Session 1