Mining, property, and the reordering of socionatural relations in Peru

Luis Moreno’s house is located on the upland side of a dirt road that leads into Chacrapampa, a village of approximately 40 households in the Cordillera Negra mountain range of Peru’s Ancash region. ¹ About 400 meters upslope from Luis’ house, a security fence, crowned with barbed wire, demarcates the boundary between village land and mine property. If one were to cross this fence and continue upslope, after about 600 meters she would arrive at the edge of the Pierina mine’s open pit, an expansive hole carved from the mountainside. The Peruvian subsidiary of Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation began extracting ore here in 1998.