Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Resettlement due to mining and infrastructure projects has become a relevant problem in Peru due to the growing number of projects juxtaposed with rural and urban habitats. Social Sciences have accumulated a body of studies that allow resettlements from multiple theoretical perspectives. Research shows residence, land use and mobility patterns of the population are not completely understood by companies and authorities in charge of resettlements, which therefore create more damage to those already affected. Companies and government use narratives about «development» and «risk» to legitimize the need of resettlement, but they are not necessarily capable of delivering the promises of a better future for those affected. Design of resettlement spaces follows a rationale of industrial and political control, far away from the traditional organization of the original towns. It is proposed that the government should norm resettlement procedures (limiting them as much as possible) including cultural, identity and participatory aspects in the design of new homes and towns.

According to the institutions (the International Financial Corporation - IFC and World Bank - WB) that regulate population resettlement and are in charge of issuing population resettlement standards, and, according to the entities that enforce these regulations, in theory, resettlements have to take place only when they are “necessary”. However, several cases has shown that what is necessary for mining projects developers differs from what is really necessary for their future neighbours - the population to be resettled. The argument of the political necessity of carrying out mining projects, almost instantaneously, annihilates any alternatives for a population to-be-displaced. This situation has revealed true power that is attributed to a mining company. By implementing a mining project, a mining company becomes the manager of the future of a community, hence of its present.Within the scope of this thesis we aimed to present the resettlement as a complex process of a “mining” government in rural context by using a broad approach applied to a Peruvian contemporary case. Our hypothesis is that a mining project builds a new social order on a territory where it settles in.Based on a case from Southern Peru, we have attempted to demonstrate in a pragmatic way the asymmetries of resources and power between a mining company and a peasant community.

In Peru, the recent commodity boom and high transfers by mining canon have meant a series of challenges and challenges for the State, in particular, the management of socio-environmental conflicts linked to extractive activities. However, a general balance shows strong contrasts where, on the one hand, we find regions with persistence of social conflicts and little progress in the rounds tables, while other regions show learning in the management of social conflicts from the local bureaucracy and civil society. Why, in some local contexts, mining activity has led to serious problems of social conflict and in others it has not? This research focuses on the department of Moquegua (2002-2016), a region dependent on mining revenues that has shown a positive performance in the management of socioenvironmental conflicts and in the negotiating tables for the viability of mining projects. Considering the importance of the regional context, the central argument proposes that the institutional legacies and active participation of civil society are key factors to understand the trajectory in the management of social conflict. Finally, these factors will help us to understand the challenges of the state for the management of conflicts in other regions.

This article is the result of a case study on the Union of Assemblies of Communities (UAC), a socioenvironmental meeting created in 2006 from the confluence of several assemblies located mainly in the Argentine territory. The aim of this article is to trace a genealogy of the UAC and distinguish the main characteristics of its form of organization, which make it a unique experience in the country.It stands out its double functioning as a network and as a meeting, the diversity of actors and socioenvironmental problems addressed, the rotation and its scope beyond the local, among others. Regarding the methodology, this work is part of an exploratory research on a poorly researched case, and therefore basically aims to bring the reader closer to the subject, through a qualitative methodology and sources of information such as the material of the organization itself, observations and interviews, basically aimed at describing the main characteristics of the UAC, its emergence and its context, respecting the vision of the social actors involved in it.

In December 2012, the Regional Government of Cusco expropriated lands owned by the rural community of Yanacona in order to allow the construction of the International Airport at Chinchero (Cusco). In addition to the payment of economic compensation, it undertook to relocate the population affected by the expropriation process. The article focuses on analyzing the resettlement process of the affected population and their expectations of modernity. The analysis shows that Regional Government did not ensure the mitigation of negative impacts of an involuntary resettlement process.Indeed, it was limited to financial compensation for the houses that the affected families would lose. Consequently, Regional Government did not ensure the reduction of the negative impact generated by a relocation. This was possible mainly due to the community’s expectations of modernity associated with the project.

For decades, Cajamarca has housed one of the most productive gold mines in the world. Between 1992, when the operations of the Yanacocha deposits began, until 2011, when the most important expansion project of the operating company was suspended, extractive activities have been a source of controversy. Only between 2004 and 2011 three conflicts reached national relevance in Cajamarca: Quilish (2004), Combayo (2006) and Minas Conga (2011). This continuum allows analyzing different types of «responses» —especially from rural areas— to mining. The article proposes that the peasant responses have been oriented to the negotiation of benefits that compensate the affectation of natural resources and allow the localities to accede, albeit in an indirect and limited way, to the profits produced by the industry. However, when the agreements reached with the company are not met or the population perceives that the impact on the means of subsistence is greater than the benefits received, incentives are generated for political mobilization. In this context, different coalitions had emerged between rural villages and urban organizations that, though ephemeral in organizational terms, promoted mobilizations against Yanacocha’s expansion projects with remarkable effectiveness.

The dialogue table in Espinar is recognized as an emblematic case of dialogue processes. However, three barriers compromised the quality of representation of civil society: the overloading of urban leaders, the underrepresentation of peasant interests and the use of technical languages to regulate decision-making. The study of this case aims to explore the limits and contradictions of participatory processes after socio-environmental conflicts in Peru. The objective is to contribute to the revision of their methodologies and to question the ideas from which different stakeholders built their participation.

The article describes and analyses the diversity of religious practices of Buenos Aires slums inhabitants. The analysis is based on aggregate data obtained through a questionnaire applied to a representative sample of residents. First, we present a discussion on the concept of popular religiosity that sustains our understanding of religious practices. We then analyze the incidence and characteristics of 18 practices, comparing them, when possible, with data from the Atlas of religious diversity coordinated by Mallimaci (2013). We delve into more depth on some of them: making a promise to a devoted figure, and having a domestic altar. We also explore the weight of the mass media and internet as spaces that sustain some practices. We end the study analyzing self-perception on the degree of religious practice, and its change over time; concluding that it tends to be stable; a dimension that is «naturally» part of their lives. The guiding questions of this article are: What are the characteristics of religious practices? What do they express? How do they relate to institutional religious settings? How do they relate to the territories inhabited? How do religious practices and religious experience relate?.

The article describes the process of resettlement in Morococha, in the highland province of Yauli in Junín as well as its historical trajectory as a mining town pivotal to the development of the miningmetallurgic axis in the central highlands of Peru. Additionally, the article critically analyzes mining company discourse that frames the displaced subject and the construction of the sense of community in order to disentangle the terms in which social difference is organized. The article concludes with some insights on the depoliticization of the resettlement process as part of the new forms of corporate governmentality and the gap between endogenous discourses about belonging and practices of identification of affected individuals.