Between Care and Conflict: Relations of Resource Extraction in the Peruvian Amazon

Abstract

The article examines the ‘contradiction’ between indigenous Amazonian people's opposition to hydrocarbon extraction and their participation in different scales of logging. It considers the literature on conflicts over resource extraction from the experiences of Joel Bardales, an Ashéninka man who leads both logging ventures and protests against hydrocarbon extraction. While scholarly debates emphasise collective responses, the article emphasises individual experiences as they motivate different strategies vis‐à‐vis resource extraction. Joel's statements, stemming from a context of a relational moral economy, reveal a position that does not reject resource extraction, but its refusal to engage in reciprocal relationships of care.