No abstract

Abstract. This article analyses the background to and the content of the Peruvian prior consultation law -the only one enacted in Latin America to date -and its regulating decree. In contrast to the widespread conception that prior consultation is a means for preventing and resolving conflict, it argues that this new legislation will not help to transform conflicts as long as the normative framework itself is contested and the preconditions for participatory governance are not in place. Establishing these preconditions would result in state institutions capable of justly balancing the diverse interests at stake; measures that reduce power asymmetries within consultations; and joint decision-making processes with binding agreements.

a b s t r a c tBased on primary sources, this article analyzes 150 participatory events related to planned hydrocarbon projects in Peru (2007Peru ( -2012. Therein, it sheds light on state depoliticizing practices and local populations' contestations thereof. We argue that participation in the extraction sector has not enabled effective participation and has instead been used to pave the way for expanding the extractive frontiers. We find that the state entity responsible for carrying out the events applied three main depoliticizing practices: (a) the organization of exclusionary participatory processes, (b) the provision of pro-extraction information, and (c) the identification of critical actors and discourses in order to formulate recommendations on how to weaken resistance against the planned activities. This study also reveals that local populations often contested the participatory events and identifies subnational patterns of local contestation. We find that higher degrees of contestation were fueled by previous negative experiences with extraction activities and the existence of local economic alternatives. To assess the histories and results of contestation over specific extractive activities over time, the study draws on monthly conflict reports produced by the Peruvian ombudsperson (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016). We find that local contestation was quite influential, leading to increased social investment programs in the affected areas, the withdrawal of several extraction corporations, and Peru's adoption of the Law on Prior Consultation (2011). However, the long-term prospects of the transformations provoked by repoliticizing processes need to be evaluated in the years to come.

No abstract

Resumen Las consultas previas no deberían ser concebidas como diálogos interculturales sino como luchas sobre la interpretación de derechos. Un aspecto no atendido ni por la política, ni por la literatura es que en estos procesos, los intermediarios—en este caso intérpretes indígenas—tienen la posición de ser mucho más que traductores lingüísticos. Applicando la idea de vernacularization entendido como la traducción de derechos de Sally Engle Merry a este nuevo ámbito, la presión política sobre las personas quienes contribuyen a estas interpretaciones vernáculas de derechos es evidente: son actores políticos en posiciones de brokerage para el entendimiento de derechos. Basado en trabajo de campo etnográfico en la Amazonía Peruana (2013–2014), muestro que los intérpretes indígenas están atascados “en el medio” de las tensiones políticas y simultáneamente tienen que ser intermediarios de conocimientos, cultura y poder. Sin saberlo, llevan todo el peso de la disputa (inter)nacional sobre las interpretaciones estatales e indígenas de la consulta previa. [Amazonia, derechos humanos, pueblos indígenas, ley, Perú, consulta previa]