Two days ago, Lucía and Joaquín (our host sister and her 2-year-old son) took Raighne, Tom, and I for a ride around some of the neighborhoods just Southeast of our own along the Pacific Coast. It was mostly just fun and really interesting (especially since Juaquín never fails to entertain), but there was one part of our trip that left me feeling really uneasy.
We were in Barranco, which Lucía told us used to be a rich summer home type party neighborhood and is now mostly known for its beautiful architecture, its restaurants, its lovers, its parks, and its "bohemian" feel. In one of its parks we came upon a huge exhibit called "Arte Nativo" sponsored by Pluspetrol, an oil extraction company that, in their own words, focuses their operations in "sensitive contexts, inhospitable zones and geological complexity, with technical expertise in: enhanced recovery, large gas fields, heavy crude extraction in remote zones, exploitation of mature fields and marginal areas. " There were photographs and information about "the people of the Amazon" and an area to buy crafts sold by people in traditional Amazonian attire. As one can imagine, this immediately but a bad taste in my mouth. These "inhospitable zones" that Pluspetrol focuses its efforts in happen to be home to over 400,000 people.
Sometime last year I started reading about the tension between Perú's federal government (under García) and some of the indigenous groups from la selva regions. The tension seemed to come to a head and get a lot of media attention in June of 2009 when over 30 people were killed after police officers attempted to break a 5,000 person blockade guarding the northern province of Utcubamba. I posted a video to my facebook (that is well worth watching) because I was surprised to hear a president say (outright and directly) that a large segment of his country's (native) population would not get any say in determining the region's future because they were irrational people trying to lead the country towards a "backward, primitive state." Yes, this was in response to the kidnapping and deaths-by-torture of several police officers, but if anything I think this just a testament to the severity of the tensions that exist. The number of indigenous people who have been killed or who are "desparecidos" as part of the unrest is unknown, but it easily surpasses any losses by the state.
Though I'm not familiar enough with this region's history to make any sort of sociological comparisons between this struggle (<-- that's not a strong enough word) and the atrocities of land and resource misappropriation that have been controlled by the financial and militarized elite in the U.S.... the process of "other-ing" that has to take place on a personal and institutionalized level in order for people to fuck each other over so badly is very familiar.
Seeing how Pluspetrol had created an "exhibit" to "educate" people about the ways of Amazonian life and about the ways in which their company is "working with the isolated communities" was unsettling to me because it seemed to be all about creating comfortable consumption of an atrocious situation. It allowed all of us walking around the park to commodify and objectify whole populations of diverse and struggling people into makers of bracelets, sellers of key chains, or people dressed "differently" who you could get your picture taken with. I could be wrong, but I really doubted that the people working at the exhibit had anything to do with the planning or presentation of their cultures.
I came home and started reading about Pluspetrol. I found this Reuters article, geared at investors in the U.S. Though it too, turns a crisis into commodity: a wild card thrown into the game of stock exchange-- it also makes it very clear, that Pluspetrol has a financial interest in keeping "social unrest" to minimum and that this will be difficult, considering the nature of oil extraction.
If anyone has any insight to add to all of this, I'd be grateful if you'd share. I'll add a few more pictures from the area we were in and catch you later.
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