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Paper short abstract:

This paper will consider co-construction and civil society implications of anthropologist in the case of the mining conflict in Peru. The presentation will be based on our fieldwork in the Cajamarca region.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation will propose a series of considerations based on fieldwork in the Cajamarca region in Peru where strong mining disputes occur.

Two main issues need to be considered. First, in this conflictive context, the researcher is immediately confronted with the denial of neutrality by his interlocutors. Co-construction is wanted but takes the risk of an 'ideologization' while not doing it can be interpreted as a form of arrogance with local spokesmen. Secondly, when deaths or rights violations occur and information is relatively controlled, personal or humanist reasons can also push the researcher to take a public position. Silent such facts could seem as an abandon of his informants.

In this context, we discuss and reflect on the links that have united our own scientific research work with European and Peruvian civil society. For us this meant privileged access to a range of actors who were opposed to mining project as well as the lack of access to mining stakeholders. It has also meant the need to extend the research to the international actors we were part of (NGOs, networks and platforms), related to our area of "return", that were also involved in local conflicts, removing any distinction of times and spaces in our work. This specific place in the glocal game can finally consider the problem of a deterritorialized anthropology related to new technologies of information and communication and the ethical implications of any anthropological work.