From the hacienda to the mine: mistis, large mining and peasant communities in the new territorial struggles in Colquemarca (Cusco, Perú), c. 1969-2022

Abstract

This article seeks to analyse and situate the recent boom in mining activity in the peasant communities of Colquemarca district (Cusco, Peru) as part of a longer history of political empowerment in the southern Andean region of Peru. It identifies a continuity between the land struggles waged by the peasant communities against the hacienda regime in the twentieth century and the current campaigns for access to and usufruct of the subsoil in the communal territories. This continuity stems from the ongoing fight for territorial control against the former local elite and other actors such as the Peruvian State and the large mining companies, which has turned this issue into an axis that articulates local political activity. In that respect, the demands for the right to exploit these territorial resources - which extend, in this case, from the land itself to the minerals of the subsoil - are understood by the families and communal organisations as local forms of contestation and territorial self-determination, as well as expressions of an historic battle for greater autonomy and sovereignty.