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Abstract
In this article, I explore the interconnections among severe oil contamination, a state-led consultation process, and compensation practices in Peru’s oldest oilfield. I discuss the way in which four indigenous organisations and their constituencies produced evidence of oil contamination, and forced the state to question Peru’s current oil extraction practices. I look at the compensation demands and corporate payments that followed, and examine how compensation became a dominant tool for both appeasing increasing uprisings, and for counteracting what local people perceive as state abandonment. Focusing on the effects that compensation measures have on daily life, I analyse how equivalences between affected water and lands, on one hand, and state investments and monetary payments on the other, are established. I discuss how these equivalences have led to making indigenous ways of life irrelevant, and how this has been reinforced by the emphasis on due process during state-led consultation.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the activists, the indigenous leaders, the villagers of the Upper Tigre River, and the civil servants and state representatives who share their views and experiences with me. Martin Scurrah, Rachel Sieder, Pablo Regalsky, Heather Swanson, Marianne Lien, Mónica Amador, and Cecilia Salinas provided valuable feedback on early versions of this paper. A special thanks to Martin Scurrah who also made possible contacts within state and civil society institutions. I also thank the TWQ reviewers and the Guest Editors for their comments. The Norwegian Research Council supports this work under grant ”Extracting justice? Exploring the role of FPIC and consultation, and compensation related to socio-environmental conflicts in Latin America”, and grant for the project nr. 240995 under the Program Independent Basic Research projects – Humanities and Social Sciences.
Notes
1. Block 1AB was renamed Block 192 in 2014. For the sake of simplicity I use Block 1AB/192.
2. Gamboa and Snoeck, “Análisis Critíco de la Consulta Previa”; Rodriguez-Garavito and Orduz Salinas, “La Consulta Previa”; Ruíz, “La implementación”; DPLF, El derecho a la consulta.
3. Flemmer and Schilling-Vacaflor, “Unfilled Promises.”
4. Schilling-Vacaflor, “Prior Consultations”; Schilling-Vacaflor “Rethinking the Link.”
5. Asdal, “On Politics”; Anand, “Polytechnics of Water Supply”; Rodríguez Garavito, “Ethnicity.gov.”
6. ILO Convention 169, domestic legislation in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador.
7. Schilling Vacaflor, “Prior Consultations”; Humpreys Bebbington “Consultation, Compensation”; Rodríguez Garavito, “Ethnicity.gov.”
8. Li “Unearthing Conflict”; Sawyer, “Law, Risk and Sovereign Epistemologies”; Kirsh, “Mining Capitalism.”
9. Nelson, “Yes to Life”; Nelson, “Who Counts”; Li, “Engineering Responsibility”; Li, “In Defense of Water.”
10. Povinelli, “Economies of Abandonment”; De La Cadena, “Indigenous Cosmpolitics.”
11. I worked at an NGO that supported local environmental monitoring of the Corrientes River.
12. Finer et al., “Oil and Gas Projects.”
13. Author’s field notes; Jaramillo, “Evaluación”; Baker, “Of Ants and Tigers.”
14. Yashar, “Contesting Citizenship in Latin America.”
15. Rodríguez Garavito, “Ethnicity.gov.”
16. Comaroff and Comaroff, “Millennial Capitalism.”
17. Rodríguez Garavito, “Ethnicity.gov.”
18. Sanborn and Paredes, “Consulta Previa:Perú.”
19. The government of Alán Garcia passed a series of decrees that proposed changes in land tenure and promoted extractive activities in the Amazon. Its failure to consult with native communities provoked strikes and protests that ended up in violent confrontations between security forces and local populations near the Amazonian town of Bagua, leaving 30 people dead and over 200 wounded.
20. SchillingVacaflor and Flemmer, “Conflict Transformation”; Sanborn and Paredes, “Consulta Previa:Perú”; Gamboa and Snoeck, “Análisis Critíco de la Consulta Previa”; Ruiz, “La implementación del derecho a la consulta.”
21. Interviews with central representatives of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, and Peru-Petro; and media articles.
22. Bebbington and Scurrah, “Hydrocarbon Conflicts,” 177.
23. Bebbington and Scurrah, “Hydrocarbon Conflicts.”
24. Orta “Impacts of Petroleum Activities,” 5–7.
25. Lu, “Rio Corrientes Case,” 31–32.
26. Li, “Unearthing Conflict”; Sawyer, “Law, Risk and Sovereign Epistemologies.”
27. Asdal, “On Politics” and “Politikens natur.”
28. Nelson, “Reckoning the Aftermath of War.”
29. It is beyond this article to explain why the organisations of the Tigre River and of the Pastaza were not able to establish such links and alliances at this point.
30. ANA, “Informe del monitoreo”; DIGESA, “Reporte Público”; Congreso del Perú, “Informe Final.”
31. ELAW “Interpretación”; Source International Informe.
32. Verran, “Numbers as an Inventive Frontier”; Li, “Engineering Responsibility.”
33. Nelson, “Reckoning the Aftermath of War.” Other logics could also be at work; see Humpreys Bebbington “Consultation, Compensation”; Guzmán-Gallegos, “Governing of Oil Extraction.”
34. Arellano-Yanguas, “Minería Sin Fronteras”; Guzmán-Gallegos, “Conflicting Dilemas.”