Extractive capitalism: transnational miners and Andean peasants in Peru

The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) increased dramatically after the economic liberalisation of the Peruvian economy during the early 1990s. The extractive sector, mainly mining, has been a mayor recipient of this massive inflow of FDI. Since then, the neoliberal establishment has made FDI the cornerstone of their development strategy, deepening extractivism. The geographic expansion of transnational mining corporations’ (TNMCs) operations has overlapped with lands occupied by indigenous peasant communities. Traditionally, Marxist literature has emphasized the notions of dependency, modes of production, and imperialism to explain the complex articulation of capitalist and non-capitalist social formations. This chapter develops an alternative conceptual Marxian framework, which is then used to explore the interaction of TNMCs and indigenous peasants in the norther highlands of Peru. Mining-related dispossessions and displacements of indigenous peasants are the main outcomes of this interaction. As a result, peasant communities, and their complex socio-economic structure, are increasingly destroyed.