Examining the Trade-offs Between Health and Work in La Oroya: The Long-Term Capability Impacts of Extractive-Led Development

Abstract

This chapter provides an analysis of the trade-off between “health” and “work” and in doing this responds to the main questions of this study. The chapter identifies and presents the components of the context of systemic lack of freedom in La Oroya as a constellation of environmental, institutional, social, and personal conversion factors. It describes how these factors condition people’s ability to expand their choices and fulfill their human rights. More concretely, the chapter explains how living under systemic lack of freedom resulting in capability deprivation in La Oroya has not only made people more susceptible to accepting human rights trade-offs between health and work but has also weakened the community’s collective agency to resist such trade-offs in a unified way.