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Mineral Incorporations: Toxicity, Livelihood, and Politics in Peru's Neoextractive Era
Dr. Stefanie Graeter
Assistant Professor, Latin American Studies
University of Arizona
Abstract: The body with minerals –biological subjects permeated with heavy-metals like lead, cadmium, arsenic, and mercury--has become a pivotal figure of mining politics in contemporary Peru. As neoliberal reforms drastically expanded metal and oil production at the turn of the 21st century, impacted communities and allies mobilized discursive strategies of toxicity science to fiercely refuse the inevitability of this renewed extractive economy. Yet as "health" moved to the fore of Peruvian environmental movements, vocal dissidents of toxicity politics also emerged, frequently among the most acutely exposed to heavy-metals themselves. This talk unpacks the political antagonisms emerging at this nexus of labor, ecology, and health, wherein mineral exposures exist as a fundamental condition of making life, as well as taking it away, bringing to the fore the paradoxes and limits of environmentalism in Peru and ongoing political struggles over life within extractive regimes of economy and governance.
Please email Amanda Percy for zoom link