Private Politics and Peasant Mobilization Mining in Peru

Private Politics and Peasant Mobilization Mining in Peru Maria-Therese Gustafsson Development, Justice and Citizenship This series responds to the urgent need to explore the multiple challenges of research International Development from the perspective of justice and citizenship Complex issues such as the global inter-connectedness of places, economies, communities, and ideas, the movement of people, the costs of increasingly intensive and extensive models of capitalist growth, the global economy of energy, finance and production, global scarcity, abundance and consumption, security, health and environmental degrada- tion all bring with them human dilemmas that directly affect people in or from the Global South and are at the heart of current agenda for development studies. The series is inspired by the research approach of the new University of Sheffield flagship research centre; the Sheffield Institute for International Development (SIID) and the colleagues and partners SIID is working with. SIID aims, above all, to set out an agenda for international development that reflects the importance of justice, rights and citizenship for global politics, policy and practices. It seeks to stimulate research for the highest calibre around international development as a question of social, political, economic and cultural justice and global social responsi- bility. It will showcase theoretical and empirical studies of the multi-level struggles for justice by and ordinary people and the politics and policies that seek to give rise to a fairer and more just global society. The series seeks contributions, therefore, that reveal the multiple ways people oper- ate and engage in forms of struggle for a better world, and that explore the ways states and international actors engage with demands for change. We welcome submissions from scholars across the globe in the form of research monographs, edited collections and shorter, polemic books (piv- ots) that address this agenda is a direct, scholarly and thought-provoking fashion. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14949 Maria-Therese Gustafsson Private Politics and Peasant Mobilization Mining in Peru Maria-Therese Gustafsson Stockholm University Stockholm, Sweden Development, Justice and Citizenship ISBN 978-3-319-60755-9 ISBN 978-3-319-60756-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60756-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947757 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu- tional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Fia Lien Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland FOREWORD The rapid growth of multinational corporate investment in mining and other extractive industries has transformed the local political and economic landscape in many parts of the developing world. In the Andean region of Latin America, much attention has been focused on conflicts between foreign-owned mining companies and local peasant and indigenous communities, typically involving control over land, water, and local environ- ments. As Maria-Therese Gustafsson demonstrates in this groundbreaking work of political ethnography in the Peruvian Andes, these conflicts can play out in myriad ways. Indeed, corporate-community relations—or what Gustafsson calls “private politics”—are not always conflictual. While some communities end up in perpetual conflict with multinational investors, others enter into various types of collaborative or clientelistic relationships in an effort to obtain privately supplied services or benefits that state institutions fail to supply. Such forms of private politics are especially important in a country like Peru, where local political organization and governing institutions are very weak in the Andean region and poorly connected to national-level political institutions. Based on extensive field research, this book analyzes the development of these different types of local relationships and explains why they exist— and how they evolve—in two large-scale mining projects. In the first of these cases, Rio Blanco, corporate-community relations were routinely confrontational, and local conflicts ultimately blocked the development of a major new mining project. In the second case, Bambas, negotiations between the multinational corporation and the local community produced clientelistic relations with some social groups, but also a type of strategic v vi FOREWARD collaboration with others that allowed mining to proceed alongside new forms of social investment and private service provision. Drawing heavily from interviews with participants on the ground and other forms of primary documentation, Gustafsson explores the relationships between different types of actors and institutions in the local governance of multinational companies. She analyzes how prior forms of civic and community organization shape contemporary patterns of grassroots participation and social mobilization. She also explains how community organizations and local governments develop linkages to outside actors like NGOs and regional organizations; how civil society repertoires of contention, negotiation, and collaboration are shaped by corporate strate- gies; and how these corporate-community interactions are conditioned by the interests and policies of both local political institutions and central state agencies. In Gustafsson’s account, different types of corporate-community relations are determined by two basic factors: the extent to which local power relations are equal or unequal, and the extent to which local communities mobilize around claims for basic rights or for particular services provided by the company itself. When local communities are politically weak relative to a foreign mining company, corporate-community relations are likely to culminate in social demobilization or the clientelistic provision of private services. Where local communities are strong enough to establish a more equal balance of power, however, local relationships tend to produce con- sistent patterns of either confrontation or strategic collaboration. In her rich portrayals of these four different types of corporate-community relations, Gustafsson sheds new light on the diverse ways in which citizens and social actors at the grassroots level can participate in local governance. She also exposes the many impediments they may encounter in that process. In the aftermath to neoliberal market reforms in Latin America, citizenship rights at the local level are being renegotiated in contexts where governing institutions are often absent, weak, or bereft of resources, while private corporate interests are both wealthy and powerful. As Gustafsson shows, such power imbalances entail a partial privatization of local governance, but they do not necessarily leave local communities supine or dependent on private corporate beneficence. Citizens and social groups can and do mobilize to contest or regulate corporate extractive activities that threaten community well-being. In so doing, they may activate and empower local democratic arenas for consultation, negotiation, and policy FOREWARD vii implementation that redefine the terms under which multinational corpo- rations do business in the Andes. Activists, policy-makers, and scholars—this writer included—have long struggled to identify effective ways to “deepen” democratic practices and extend democratic participation to new spheres of social and economic interaction. No ready-made formulas or recipes exist to attain such goals; they are only revealed through myriad forms of struggle in diverse local settings. Gustafsson has written a deeply insightful book that shines new light on such struggles in the Peruvian Andes. For readers who are inter- ested in emerging forms of local governance and deeper forms of democratic citizenship, this book is the ideal place to start. Cornell University, USA Kenneth Roberts PREfACE One day in September 1999, I entered a restaurant in a little Andean vil- lage in Peru. An old man approached me and asked where I came from. When I answered, and he spoke to me in Swedish, I could not hide my surprise. The man turned out to be Hugo

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