Toxic Talk and Collective (In)action in a Company Town: The Case of La Oroya, Peru

Neumann, Pamela

doi:10.1093/socpro/spw010

Cited by 24 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Cases of overt political resistance are doubtless interesting, but a focus on infrequent environmental justice triumphs feeds into a "temporalities of crisis" (Berlant 2007, 764) framing that overlooks the slower, less visible, yet omnipresent actuality of everyday toxic exposure. This study responds to calls to shift attention beyond these exceptional and politicized environmental campaigns (Neumann 2016;Huber 2017), to access nonspectacular and more quotidian understandings of necropolitical pollution, thus attuning itself more readily to the framework of slow violence.…”

Section: The Necropolitics Of Placementioning

confidence: 94%

“…The way toxicants are slowly secreted allows such accumulations of pollution to be ubiquitous yet unrecognized, accruing harm over time yet also making it more difficult to epidemiologically and geographically locate blame. The spatiotemporal ambiguities created by toxic pollution are often met with long-term environmental justice campaigns, community resistance, and citizen science (Allen 2003;Walker 2012;Ottinger 2013), yet can equally produce cases of widespread "toxic uncertainty" (Auyero andSwistun 2009), "quiet" or "resigned" activism (see Lora-Wainwright 2017;Pottinger 2017), or the complete immobilization and inaction of pollution-affected communities (Neumann 2016). Previous scholars have argued (see Beck 1992) that this nexus of science and uncertainty, action and inaction, makes pollution a highly politicized concept, with occasionally harmful and contested consequences.…”

Section: Time Toxics and Slow Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is not to say that communities are indifferent to the contested threats of pollution-the myriad claims of bodily harm associated with Cancer Alley testifies to that-but it is notably rare for toxic uncertainty to be translated into meaningful legal action or challenges to the compartmentalized geography of this industrialized space. Environmental justice victories in Louisiana and other polluted regions are therefore the exception rather than the rule, and collective inaction is a far more common occurrence (Shriver and Kennedy 2005;Auyero and Swistun 2009;Neumann 2016).…”

Section: The Necropolitics Of Placementioning

confidence: 99%

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Toxic Space and Time: Slow Violence, Necropolitics, and Petrochemical Pollution

Davies

2018

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

191

162

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Section: The Necropolitics Of Placementioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Time Toxics and Slow Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Necropolitics Of Placementioning

confidence: 99%

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Toxic Space and Time: Slow Violence, Necropolitics, and Petrochemical Pollution

Davies

2018

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

191

162

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“…The high contents of other heavy metals (e.g., arsenic and cadmium) might be related to the geology, but could also be influenced by the long history of mining, e.g., the Cercapuquio mine was abandoned in the early twentieth century and never remediated. Regarding the third reason, since 1922 the three smelters at the La Oroya mine-located 167 km north-west from Cercapuquio-have emitted non-regulated toxic smokes that have affected land and water bodies, presumably including the Cunas sub-basin [83,[108][109][110]. Although the air transportation of cadmium, lead and arsenic mostly occurs in short distances [111], there are reports that this has also occurred over great distances from the smelters [83].…”

Section: Effects On the Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Heavy Metals on Community Farming Activities in the Central Peruvian Andes

et al. 2019

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The high mining potential of the Peruvian Andes has promoted booming foreign investments. The mining activity takes place on campesino community lands and headwaters. Once the government awards a mining concession, mining companies must regularly negotiate land rent with communities over the whole duration of the mining operation, often leading to disagreements. Our research objective is to identify the mining impacts on the farming activities of campesino communities in the Junin region, central Peruvian Andes. Using a mixed-methods approach involving in-depth interviews, water and soil analysis, land-cover classification and participatory mapping, we analyzed the mining-community agreements and the mining impacts on the farming lands. We arrived at two primary conclusions. First, mining activities in terms of heavy metal concentrations impact on farming lands, although the contribution of previous and concurrent activities cannot be distinguished. Second, the diverging and short-termed interests of the involved parties which circumscribe the agreements may potentially lead to conflicts.Minerals 2019, 9, 647 2 of 28 own the land [17,19]. Based on the canon minero, 50% of the taxes from the mining sector is distributed among the affected subnational governments (i.e., district and province) [20][21][22][23]. The subnational governments directly affected by mining may receive up to 70% of this tax [11,18,24], while campesino communities are excluded from receiving it directly. As a result, the communities tend to negotiate compensations separately with the mining companies. Both canon minero and compensations are aimed at reducing land-use conflicts. Despite this, conflicts increased (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011), reduced in 2012 and have remained constant (ca. 162 yearly conflicts) since then [19,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. In 2017, Peru allocated 16 million ha for mining concessions [38], although not all of these became viable mines. The most common mining practice in Peru is open-pit mining, as this model is preferred for exploiting metal deposits. There are 36 open-pit mines throughout the country [39]. The environmental impacts of open-pit mining mainly relate to water infiltration and supply to rivers [12,[40][41][42], which impact the socio-economic situation of local households [1,[43][44][45].Most studies have split these biophysical and socio-economic aspects rather than integrating them [43][44][45][46]. Therefore, an interdisciplinary approach [47] is suggested to broaden the understanding of the impacts of mining from different perspectives. In this sense, the overarching objective of this study is to identify the mining impacts on the farming activities of campesino communities in the Junin region. Therefore, we first analyzed the agreements between mining companies and communities via in-depth interviews with stakeholders. Then, we evaluated the influence by open-pit mining sites on the water and soil quality and assessed the effects on farming lands. The foll...

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“…As a state-owned enterprise, the local government has limited authority to interfere in the operation of JNMC. Therefore, cooperation would be a better way to communicate and build a positive relationship between the enterprise and local government in this "company city" (Neumann, 2016;Sicotte, 2009). This way of cooperation also works well among other enterprises.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing the Understanding of Urban Systems for Sustainability Transition: A Study of Urban Environmental Management in the Natural Resource-Based Industrial City of Jinchang, China

Liu¹

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Rapid world urbanisation calls attention to the issue of sustainable urban development. Urbanisation problems are especially pressing in the industrial cities of China, where environmental conditions have deteriorated with rapid economic and urban development. This study is an exploration of sustainability in an urban context using the natural resource-based industrial city of Jinchang in N.W.China as a case study. The main objective of this study has been to gain a better understanding of urban systems and potential ways of facilitating urban sustainability.The study demonstrates that urban transitions toward sustainability can be facilitated by a systematic and holistic understanding of complex urban systems. The study established a theoretical framework for understanding sustainable urban development and reviewed China's environmental governance philosophies to provide a cultural and political context. A mixed methodology that combined quantitative and qualitative approaches was then applied to Jinchang City to test this framework.Urban metabolism modelling using Material Flow Analysis (MFA) was used to model Jinchang's urban biophysical system and evaluate its sustainability potential over a twenty years period. The study showed that Jinchang's urban development relies heavily on local resources with high material/energy consumption and high waste/pollution generation. This directly challenges sustainable urban development. However, a sustainable trend was observed as economic growth has been strongly decoupled from air pollution while material utilisation efficiency has significantly improved. This suggests that synchronised progress in economic development and environmental improvement requires radical transformations of dematerialisation and decoupling of economic growth from material/energy consumption by adopting technical approaches of cleaner production, circular economy and economic structural adjustment.A field inquiry with semi-structured interview as the main approach explored multi-level human responses to urban problems. This provided insights into the real world from a bottom-up perspective and helped to gain an in-depth understanding of human-environment interactions. The model of urban social system based on public responses revealed that the influences of urban social system on sustainable urban development are determined by key factors in three clusters: commitment of stakeholders, institutional development, and personal development. The challenge for a transition to sustainable behaviour is to bridge the gaps between knowledge and practice. The commitment of government is particularly important in promoting collaboration and participation of stakeholders to fill knowledge gaps and confront governance challenges. Cultural and personal development are soft ii power to accelerate this transition by promoting the knowledge, motivation and commitment of stakeholders. The study suggests that transitions towards sustainability involve multi-level reforms and their synthesis across levels ...

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Toxic Talk and Collective (In)action in a Company Town: The Case of La Oroya, Peru

Cited by 24 publications

References 34 publications

Toxic Space and Time: Slow Violence, Necropolitics, and Petrochemical Pollution

Toxic Space and Time: Slow Violence, Necropolitics, and Petrochemical Pollution

Impact of Heavy Metals on Community Farming Activities in the Central Peruvian Andes

Enhancing the Understanding of Urban Systems for Sustainability Transition: A Study of Urban Environmental Management in the Natural Resource-Based Industrial City of Jinchang, China

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