Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the way in which activism is incorporated into the everyday lives and practices of rural women anti-mining activists in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Andes.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the way in which activism is incorporated into the everyday lives and practices of rural women in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Andes. Drawing on research with women anti-mining activists in Piura (Peru) and Cuenca (Ecuador), the paper emphasises that resistance is relatively rarely concerned with large scale protests, transnational activism, and the spectacular, but rather depends on daily resistance and resilience in, often fractured, local communities. I explore how rural women make extraordinary circumstances, including facing lawsuits and accusations of terrorism, part of their everyday lives, and how their resistance is enacted through strategies of staying put and carrying on, drawing on emblematic narratives of tradition, ancestry and customary practices to challenge notions of progress and development.