Acting as social scientists in a resource extractive context: imageries, control and alternatives

I will discuss a paper written with Isabel Yepez del Castillo. In this article, we consider some of the outstanding issues facing social scientists who work in Peru in a context of unequal resource development. This situation provides an opportunity to reflect more broadly on the challenges involved by acting faced by social scientists today. First, we show how large-scale development of mineral, oil, and gas resources is supported by discourses and imageries that are both colonial and modernizing. We then show how social science knowledge is wielded as a tool to garner knowledge aim at confining conflicts and justify and sustain the development model. Finally, we discuss alternatives by referring to several authors, including Maristella Svampa, Peter Benson and Stuart Kirsch, and Boaventura de Sousa Santos