Eco-eco, ethno-ecology and int. assessment seminar series. "Seeing like an extractivist state: Governmentality, environmental conflicts and violence in Peru"

Diego Andreucci (PhD candidate, ICTA-UAB). 10/04/2013 1.30pm to 3pm (Escola d'Enginyeria building Q4/1003) Abstract The expansion of the commodity frontier in Peru has resulted in the last decade in a surge in environmental conflicts, many of which have been repressed violently by the state. The World Bank has contributed significantly to the expansion of Peru¿s extractive sector, while investing in the promotion of sustainability in the country. Emphasis on making growth sustainable and inclusive, however, has not diminished the key role of violence in rolling-out the extractivist project. I argue that, in order to capture this apparent contradiction, greater attention should be paid to the territorial logic of extractivism and to the institutional discourses and imaginaries which sustain this development model. I suggest that research on environmental justice at the commodity frontiers should make a greater effort to capture the ¿way of seeing¿ of extractivist states, by adding to its distributional framework a concern for the governmentality and political economy of extractivist development. Short bio Diego Andreucci is a PhD candidate at ICTA/UAB and a Pre-doctoral Marie Curie Fellow of the European Network of Political Ecology (ENTITLE). He holds a Bachelor degree in Philosophy and Anthropology from ¿La Sapienza¿ University of Rome (2007), a Masters in ¿Environment, society and development¿ (2010) and a Research Masters in Geography (2012), both from National University of Ireland, Galway. Under the supervision of Giorgos Kallis, Joan Martínez Alier and Gavin Bridge (Durham University), Diego's research examines the political ecology of resource-based development¿or ¿extractivism¿¿in Latin America. By combining a broad engagement with political ecology theory with empirical cases from Peru and Bolivia, his PhD project explores the complex political, economic and socio-ecological outcomes of extractivism at multiple scales, as well as the alternatives which emerge from local struggles and movements.