Cannibalistic exchanges with mountain-ancestors

Moral economies of gold mining in northern Peru

Bibliographic Data

ID2285366
AuthorsAna Mariella Bacigalupo (0009-0008-3704-6631, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume29
Issue3
Pages220-229
Publication date2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1935-4932 • E-ISSN: 1935-4940
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jlca.12727
OpenAlexW4399436303
LanguageEN
References cited19

Campesinos (peasants) and norteños (northerner entrepreneurs) in highland Huamachuco, la Libertad, northern Peru-reconcile their mining within Andean practices about the perceived sentience and agency of mountain-ancestors (apus). They do so by engaging in two different types of apu cannibalism that are antithetical to each other. I analyze how the conflict between Andean campesino communities who practice small-scale underground mining on the apu El Toro site, and, the Summa Gold open-pit mining company (owned by former campesinos now norteño) also on apu El Toro, reshapes, on both sides, relationalities with mountain-ancestors and capitalism. I explore miners' practical moral economies with apus, the local government, and legal authorities to secure economic and political benefits as their worlds are transformed by capitalism. I also analyze how the power inequality between campesino and norteño miners shapes these exchanges, their ability to control the limits of extractivism, and the rhetoric around mining contamination

Agency (philosophy · Archaeology · Capitalism · Economics · Economy · Ethnology · Geography · Gold mining · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Mining and Resource Management · Water Governance and Infrastructure