Indigenous peoples and environmental degradation in southeastern Peru: Arakbut decision-making in times of gold mining expansion

Indigenous agency and environmental degradation follow sinuous paths, and both depend on state policies that promote development and ecocide. The Arakbut people, who live southeast of the Peruvian Amazon, have long respected the natural and spiritual worlds. They lived isolated until 1950. But since the 1970s, the presence of gold miners and traders increased in their territories. More than 16 tons of gold are extracted per year, spilling more than 45 tons of mercury into the environment. To survive, the Arakbut learned to mine gold. Mining has become integral to the local culture but now threatens the environment and the very existence of the Arakbut people. By focusing on indigenous perspectives, through an ethnographic study, this research addresses indigeneity, extractivism (specifically, the gold mining), and ecocide in order to explore Arakbut perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors around the adoption of gold extraction and state policies relating to extractivism. Ethnocide, ethnogenesis, and coloniality theories suggest that assimilationist state policies were put in place to suppress ideational—that is, ontological—differences and to convert indigenous peoples into Peruvian citizens. They remain excluded and deprived of their rights to keep their territory and resources, despite having adapted to adverse circumstances and despite having adopted such Western practices as gold mining. Globalization and hybridization theories help to propose that interbreeding and integration into the global market consolidated changes in the Arakbut cultural identity. Arakbut coexistence with settlers (i.e., the Amiko people) reinforced the adoption of gold mining as cultural practice. The dependency theory shows that developing states depend on global markets and capitalism to ensure economic growth based on neoliberal policies, which justify extractivism and seizure of indigenous territories and resources. The Arakbut are forced to survive in adverse socioeconomic and environmental conditions, getting involved in an informal gold economy, connected to the global market. Ultimately, the principle of the sovereignty of the nation-state collides with the principle of self-determination, affecting indigenous rights. The Arakbut seek neither cultural authenticity nor ethnic purity but do defend their right to control their identity—which comprises their culture and territory.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference