Regularizing Extraction in Andean Peru: Mining and Social Mobilization in an Age of Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

This paper examines the new forms of regulation and resistance accompanying the expanding extractive frontier in Andean Peru. It does so through an analysis of a process of community mobilization at the Pierina gold mine in the region of Ancash that was aimed at transforming the conditions under which area residents labored at the mine. The article documents the complex ways in which the emergence of neoliberalized forms of resource governance has affected the terrain of mining‐related sociopolitical struggle at Pierina, both allowing the mining firm to consolidate authority in the arena of mine–community relations, while also establishing certain conditions for residents to pursue their interests collectively. An analysis of the Pierina case suggests that efforts to forge more just and equitable political economies of mineral development must not only challenge the neoliberalization of resource governance, but also confront the underlying socio‐ecological contradictions of contemporary capitalist resource development.

Contested claims over space and identity between fishers and the oil industry in Mexico

“…Neoliberal discourses and programmes of corporate social responsibility have, for example, been combined with clientelist co-opting and indirect governing in the Peruvian Andes (Himley, 2013) and Ecuadorian Amazonia (Sawyer, 2004). Most studies of these phenomena examine situations where local resource users have succeeded in collectively mobilizing against extractive industries.…”

“…In their research on hydrocarbon governance in the Gulf of Mexico, Breglia (2013) and Zalik (2009) demonstrate how -apart from legal actions and state-policing in the privatizing offshore -the Mexican government's welfare interventions are encouraging fishers to become entrepreneurial aquaculturists. Correspondingly, Sawyer (2004), Breglia (2013) and Himley (2013) show how corporations are seeking to transfer local claims to resource access from formal political arenas to voluntary programmes of corporate social responsibility and community development. These actions are aimed at obscuring the issues of environmental and social responsibility involved in extractive operations and hiding the inherently political nature of the corporates' actions.…”

“…Inspired by Collier's (2009) Foucauldian approach, we examine how modes of resource governance based on conventional forms of authoritarian control (Watts, 2004b;Zalik, 2009) become combined with techniques of disentanglement and indirect governance (Appel, 2012;Himley, 2013). We argue that empirical analyses of neoliberal governance would benefit from more attention being paid to the complex articulations of different forms of governance.…”

Mining History: Mobilizing The Past In Struggles Over Mineral Extraction In Peru

“…In addition to noting the greater access to land‐based resources they enjoyed, residents also spoke about daily rhythms being calmer and about social life being more harmonious before Barrick's arrival. Carmen, a woman from Chacrapampa, said the following about life before Pierina: “We lived more peacefully, more freely ( más libres ).” After discussing how mine construction reduced the community's pastureland, she brought up a violent confrontation that occurred between police and community residents in 2006, during a protest over the conditions under which area residents were employed at Pierina (see Himley ). Carmen described how one of her family members had been seriously injured in this conflict.…”

“…Finally, former Santo Toribio workers often spoke of their full‐time employment at that mine in conjunction with commentary on the limited job opportunities available to them at Pierina. While Barrick hires men from area communities on a short‐term and rotational basis to perform mostly manual labor jobs, few locals are employed full‐time, and most men I interviewed considered their occasional work at Pierina to not meet their livelihood needs (Himley , ).…”