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Accepted Paper:
Copper for China: energy transition and the increase in socioenvironmental conflicts, the case of Las Bambas, Perú.
Raquel Neyra
(UNALM)
The colonial governance and vision of nature of the Chinese mining company Las Bambas leads resistant communities to a behaviour resulting from the intersectionality between practices of good living and the imposition of modernity.
Paper long abstract:
The energy transition requires enormous amounts of materials; an electric car needs at least four times more copper than a fossil fuel car. Peru is heavily dependent on mineral exports and the world's second largest copper extractor. China is the main buyer of Peruvian copper, either through its own mining companies or by purchasing it from other companies. Governments deploy mining extraction projects to respond to the demands of the global social metabolism and impose the projects with an arsenal of laws above popular decisions or without any prior consultation or with incomplete information. In the case of Las Bambas, owned by the Chinese mining company MMG, there are disputes over territory. The company's colonial governance seeks monetary compensation for the environmental and territorial claims of the affected populations. Although the social cohesion of the communities and their culture are threatened and many are criminalized, resistance continues unabated. In this proposal we will evaluate how companies and government act from a colonial vision of nature, and how the behaviors of resistance reflect the intersectionality resulting from centuries of coloniality of knowledge and power in which the search for the good life is confused with chrematistic claims determined by modernity and material needs.