Transformations in Labor, Land and Community: Mining and Society in Pasco, Peru, 20th Century to the Present.

Abstract

This dissertation is a historical ethnography of a mining region in central Peru, as well as an attempt to reflect on how social formations and antagonisms within capitalism shift over time. The starting point for this investigation is the decline in class-based politics that took place in parts of the world at the end of the 20th century, and the simultaneous rise of new social movements. In the Peruvian mining industry, the 1980s and 90s saw a shift from the predominance of labor conflicts to that of mine-community struggles over land, environmental and distribution issues. Through research in an area where both the labor and the land relation involve many of the same populations, I interrogate these late-20th century transformations and place them in the context of longer-term dynamics, in particular the century-long transition from labor shortage to labor surplus. I also re-examine the social history of the mining camps, focusing especially on topics such as everyday life, the household and the environment. This world ended in the 1980s and early 90s, during a period of decline precipitated by the global crisis of capitalist accumulation, and in a context of political violence. Yet as a new mining boom has taken hold since the mid-1990s and especially since 2003 (prompted by the industrialization of China), capital has encountered new challenges. Open-pit mines, which require little labor, have encountered widespread opposition, due to their invasive encroachment on local space as well as the sense of exclusion they foster. Underground mines, such as those in my region of focus, continue to require significant amounts of labor, even if a labor surplus is also present here. As the voice and power of labor have declined, however, the land/local community relation has taken over many of its functions, becoming socially “thick” as a repository for people´s expectations of progress and for the defense of local agency against powerful outside entities such as mining companies. I thus conclude by arguing that there is a surplus of the social that overflows the forms set by struggles over value, and that then expresses itself through other relations.