This Ain't Democracy Anymore...

Research seminar about conflicts around mining in Peru, by Raphael Hoetmer

Tags: Peru , Civil Society Building

"This ain´t democracy anymore..." : Reflections based on the referendum on mining in the Northern frontier of Peru.

Over the last years conflicts around mining have emerged around Peru. One of the emblematic cases is the resistance against the illegal presence of the Rio Blanco mining in the territories of the Yanta and Segunda y Cajas communities, in the Ayavaca and Huancabamba provinces. In the northern frontier of Peru, apart from direct action, legal initiatives, attempts to dialogue with the central State, and media campaigns, a referendum was organized over mining in the region, which resulted in a clear no-vote of the population. In spite of all this, the Peruvian government insists on the importance of the project, and has applied a fierce politics of repression and criminalization that untill now led to four peasant leaders being killid by police forces.

In the presentation Hoetmer analyzes how this conflict may be interpreted. He will argue that the conflict is the continuity of historical processes of negotiation in between marginalized populations and local and national political-economical elites, over the territorial, political and economical organization of society. Therefore the radicality of this struggle does not depend on the type of action applied or on an ideological basis, but in fact is sustained by the insistence of the communities on the possibility of organizing life, economy, the State and politics differently from hegemonic developmentalism.

Raphael Hoetmer works for Programa Democracia y Transformacion Global, at the San Marcos University in Lima. In January 2011 he will start his PhD at ISS on social movements in Latin America.

Event details:

27 October, 1-2 PM, Room 4.01, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.

How to get to ISS?

See his paper (in Spanish) attached.