Resisting Extractivism by Michael Wilson Becerril

Author:Michael Wilson Becerril
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Cerro Corona

Dialogue and Depoliticization

The fourth case I selected for the focus of this book is quite different to the previous three. To answer the first of this study’s two main research questions (why do some mining conflicts become more violent than others?), it was crucial to analyze null cases—contexts in which conflict had not escalated noticeably, despite the circumstances they may have shared with other cases that did intensify. Gold Fields is a Johannesburg-based corporation that operates projects worldwide and enjoys a reputation as a modern and responsible mining company, globally and perhaps especially in Peru. Its Cerro Corona mine in Cajamarca is exemplary among mining projects because, while there are serious complaints among the nearby communities, it is one of the few in which conflict has remained entirely nonviolent. From an analytical standpoint, this is especially significant and puzzling given that the mine is situated in Cajamarca region, infamous for its often-violent mining conflicts. Cerro Corona is only miles away from the largest gold mine in South America, Yanacocha, and nearby to La Zanja. Indeed, Gold Fields began developing its mine as conflicts over the La Zanja and Quilish projects intensified between 2003 and 2004.

This chapter explores the reasons why protesters whose claims and grievances center on the Cerro Corona mine have largely kept to low levels of organizing, and why their tactics have never escalated beyond symbolic demonstrations and sporadic, nonviolent disruptions. Among the cases in this research, Cerro Corona is the smallest mine (although not by far—see Figure 7), and it operates in a “traditional mining district,” but the ethnographic study below will argue that, far more importantly, it is the company’s community-engagement strategies, at the corporate and everyday levels, that explain its relative success in avoiding or preventing conflicts. However, this study also posits that the company’s strides toward building amicable relations with locals have been insufficient to build durable and mutual relationships. The everyday tone of friendliness and openness that most company actors have built with locals does affect the levels of confrontation and has been effective at avoiding explosive conflict. However, these interpersonal efforts do not diminish, and sometimes reinforce, the material inequities that surround mining operations, particularly the uneven distribution of their benefits and burdens. In other words, treating locals with less arrogance and having larger budgets for corporate investments in local projects has pacified, but not resolved, the serious tensions and complaints that locals expressed.

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