ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how land has been the locus of La Granja’s social history over the last four decades. The struggles over its access and ownership have involved a series of actors, from the hacendado and the state, to international mining companies, as well as a network of relatives. Indeed, kinship is at the center of Granjinos’ strategies for accessing and transferring land rights. Traditionally, women have had limited access to land, and they were able to inherit only when they married. Nevertheless, the mining project has unleashed social and economic dynamics that are allowing women to access land and, thus, defying existing patriarchal tenure patterns. Finally, in the context of mining development, land has redoubled its centrality; however, this is not because of the land’s farming value but because its surface value will be important in a potential negotiation with the mining project.
