ABSTRACT
Based on his work as an independent consultant in social performance working across Latin America and especially in highland Indigenous and peasant communities, the author highlights the tension between proponent understandings of consultation, and community expectations regarding their right to consent to a project and appropriate benefits from it. The complexity of consultation processes is highlighted, including the added challenges that result from engagement by multiple agencies of the state, weak local governance structures and property rights, political opportunism, and intergenerational tensions.
