“The dog in the manger”

This chapter argues that neoliberal slogans are powerful, if ambiguous, vehicles of simplicity, polarization, and morality. Based on Peruvian material, notably the tensions and confrontations before, during, and after the so-called Baguazo, this chapter suggests that neoliberal slogans have been instrumental in generating, rather than merely accompanying, the contradictions that have shaped and continue to affect social and environmental conflicts in the Peruvian Amazon. Slogans are, from this perspective, not merely carefully orchestrated “form,” but carriers of social significance that deserve ethnographic attention and anthropological theorization.