Ethnography Blog

Much time has lapsed since the last dispatch from the field; it has become increasingly arduous to commit to updating the ethno-blog as my days are enveloped by an ever-growing barrage of fieldwork tasks. However, with the recent flooding in the region I had a free rainy day to write about some findings from structured interviews and participant observation in Puerto Maldonado. I tackle three interconnected topics that have recently emerged during fieldwork: (1) risks associated with park guarding and the consequences they might entail, such as a costly injury or financial hardship from quitting the job, (2) a particular strategy to cope with such consequences called a pollada (chicken party), which is also an important cultural practice that encourages reciprocity and solidarity, and (3) ethnographic challenges of framing interview questions to better understand the ways in which work, reciprocity, and contingent labor are intertwined in Madre de Dios.

---

Risks of Park Guarding 

Since arriving to Madre de Dios at the start of April 2014 I have been collecting narratives of conservation work. Risk is one theme I explore during structured interviews and many of the stories my questions elicit are surprising and sometimes a little terrifying. I have gained tremendous respect for conservation workers, especially park guards who in particular face myriad risks while guarding their control posts and conducting patrols. Below are a few abbreviated examples of risk narratives:

A lone park guard was working in the office at his outpost near the Transoceanic Highway when he was suddenly knocked unconscious by a blow to the head with a pistol. He awoke several minutes later as masked men fastened him to a tree and left him for the forest—they were likely narco-traffickers securing a safe passageway through the protected area. Two harrowing days passed before help arrived after personnel at headquarters grew concerned when the park guard hadn’t responded to two consecutive daily dispatches. He was found alive but had lost some blood and was covered in insect bites.

In a more remote area of Madre de Dios at the world’s first private conservation concession (Los Amigos) a park guard or “promotor” was conducting a bi-monthly routine patrullaje (patrol) on a peke peke (canoe with small outboard motor) up the Los Amigos watershed in 2013 when his boat was attacked at the bend of the river by several members of the Mascho-Piro native ethnic group. The Mascho-Piro (among several other native populations in Madre de Dios) have been living in voluntary isolation since the rubber boom ended over one hundred years ago (click here for an excellent blog post about the Mashco-Piro by anthropologist Glenn Shepard).

The park guard quickly continued upriver until another group of Mascho-Piro men emerged from the forest at the next river bend and began shooting again with bows and arrows—the park guard quickly maneuvered the boat in a fast 180 degree turn and throttled the motor as fast as it would spin to escape (which he did without injury though he returned to his post with a few ‘souvenirs’— arrows that had fallen inside the boat). I accompanied his replacement (he quit soon after) along with two other guards in May 2014 as they patrolled the Los Amigos River past an abandoned control post that was raided a few years ago by Mashco-Piro.

I recently conversed with a taxi driver who was a guard at Manu National Park in the 1990s. At this time park guards received a monthly salary of around 50 percent of what it is today (~$500) and did not receive benefits such as health insurance. The cab driver recounted a story of his last day on the job. He was clearing trails with a machete one afternoon when he arrived to a massive thicket of paca (thorny bamboo with very sharp spines). He began to cut it down when suddenly a few shoots fell onto him and punctured his abdomen, causing a profound wound that excessively bled. He was fortunate to have access to a helicopter that particular day; a congressman had just flown in from Lima to visit a nearby native community and offered his helicopter to transport the injured park guard to the nearest hospital in Cusco. He mentioned that he lost 20 kilograms after the accident due to health complications associated with the injury.

In the ongoing struggle to eliminate gold mining within protected areas of Madre de Dios, a park guard at a control post on the Malinowski River recently attempted to confront a group of gold miners illegally operating on a beach within the Tambopata National Reserve, but was defiantly met with rifles and pistols and warned to leave. He had to recruit the help of local police authorities to end the operation. These confrontations have grown increasingly common in recent years since the gold rush commenced in the region.

While the daily life of park guarding is sometimes described as mundane and uneventful, banality vanishes at the bite of a jergon (Fer-de-lance, Bothrop sp. venomous snake) or from a chainsaw accident from removing fallen trees from the trails. These variegated risk narratives throw light on what the front lines of local conservation work look like when things go awry. They also allude to an important question:

How do families cope with ruptures into their lives that result in unexpected medical bills or financial hardship?

The pollada is one solution to such problems.

---

The Pollada: Economic Strategy and Form of Solidarity

A pollada (chicken party) is a cookout with family and friends for the purpose raising funds to pay an unexpected expense. When the expense is a medical bill or a costly medication the fundraiser is called a Pollada prosalud (pro-health pollada) and when it is for paying a debt, bank loan, travel expense, etc. it is called a pollada económica (economic pollada). The family in need (or a supporting relative, friend, or colleague) purchases a large quantity of chickens to grill and serve for a profit. Plates consist of a quarter-piece of chicken and side or two that varies depending on region. In Madre de Dios grilled chicken is normally served along with boiled yucca and a small salad of lettuce and cucumber (sold for 10 soles  or~$3.25 currently). Beverages are charged extra and beer in particular is important because it encourages more consumption (and thus more profits raised to support the cause). Sometimes a live band plays music and people dance (called ‘pollada bailable,’ or ‘dance pollada’).

The time factor of polladas is important. They occur during Saturdays of the weekend and are thus considered leisure events that consist of supporting a noble cause while passing free time visiting and drinking with relatives, friends, and acquaintances invited by others. Often times family members who host the pollada meet a week prior to determine how many chickens they can sell and then divide tickets (for plates of food) among each member. The tickets perform an important function; while anyone can simply agree to attend a pollada (and likely never show), tickets are sold during the week leading up to the pollada so that invited friends who say they will attend must commit to pay for their plate in advance. Often time one is solicited to purchase a ticket with a phrase that begins with,  “Colabórame” (work with me) or “Apoyame” (support me).

Polladas are both a  household economic strategy and inter-household practice that encourages solidarity. They originated during economic and political hardship in metropolitan Lima among Andean migrants who continued traditional practices of reciprocity (such as ayni, see pg81 here) between family members and neighbors. The practice of throwing polladas have since diffused and is now ubiquitous across Peru. For an in-depth analysis of the emergence of polladas in Peru, see this academic journal article (in Spanish).

---

Work and Reciprocity

Reciprocity can also play an important role in work strategies, sometimes in ways I had not anticipated. During recent structured interviews I learned that sometimes simply asking the question, “Have you ever worked in mining or logging?” was not a sufficient way to to address previous experiences in natural resource extraction. “Work” denotes paid labor, and many park guards and ecotourism workers never worked in mining or logging for a wage.

However, just as I wrote in an earlier post about children and labor in Madre de Dios, many conservation workers  helped their parents or relatives by washing gold or carrying lumber when they were young. Unpaid labor is not restricted to childhood; some conservation workers answered “no” to having worked in mining or logging but later in the interview mentioned helping a family member or in-law in such activities (and sometimes frequently) to reciprocate for help they received  (e.g. the person takes care of the interviewee’s children while they work at a control post or eco-lodge). I have thus had to reexamine interview questions to reflect on how my study participants and I ascribe different meanings to words as seemingly simple as “work.”

There is another important distinction to make regarding the term “work” in the context of the interview question, “Have you ever worked in mining or logging?” Some interviewees responded “no” but later mentioned that they washed gold or carried lumber when I asked about previous cachuelos they had. A Cachuelo is an informal temporary job that people work for an extremely short period (and usually for a higher wage than what is typically received during more consistent, formal work). They might spend a day harvesting crops, painting a building, and in some cases, washing gold or carrying lumber. Some conservation workers I interviewed earn more money working cachuelos during their days off than they do in their regular jobs. Cachuelos are a crucial part of my research and asking about them has yielded many insights about the nature of contingent labor in Amazonia.

---

Concluding Thoughts

I began this ethno-blog entry describing risk narratives of park guards and their potential health and economic consequences. I selected examples to describe more extreme cases that involved physical risk and discussed polladas as a culturally important coping strategy when a family member endures a serious injury at work or financial hardship from quitting his or her job due to such risks.

However, park guards (and other workers in the conservation economy like eco-tour guides) also face social risks when they continually miss anniversaries, birthdays, and day-to-day life with their families due to the remote location of the workplace. The cumulative effect might be an estranged relationship with a spouse or offspring (as more than one conservation worker described, “You arrive to your home and your son calls you “uncle”).

There are also cultural risks when someone who works in biodiversity conservation abandons particular cultural practices that relate to the environment, such as eating wild animal meat (e.g. monkeys, peccaries, caiman, etc.), hunting, or working in logging or mining. Though each of these topics deserve their own articles, they should at least be mentioned when considering the vast array of risks in conservation work, and they are often times the cause of more enduring problems. I am having to rethink ideas of “risk” just as I had to redefine “work” to ask about prior experience in natural resource extraction.

Other interviewing issues come to the fore of my mind as I reflect on the topics of “work” and “risk” and its multiple meanings between my study participants and I. For example, one method I have employed during interviews is to ask participants to list all the words that come to mind when they hear the word “nature.” The purpose of this task is to compile and analyze all interviewee lists to establish what is called “cultural domain” (read more about this ethnographic method here). With the exception of a few outlying responses such as “my life, my work” and “ayahuasca, vitality” most responses tend to be mundane such as “trees” and “birds” and so forth. Thus, I added a followup question that has elicited more insightful responses about participants’ perceptions of the environment: “What is the opposite of ‘nature’ in your opinion?” This inquiry has helped me to understand how participants conceptualize ‘nature’ vis–à–vis human activities and social life. This point further exemplifies that ethnographic interviewing is a dynamic process that requires careful reflection of how questions are framed. Moreover, it demonstrates that we live in different conceptual worlds that are often difficult to elucidate, as subtle differences in the meanings of words can create large gulfs between how ethnographers and their study participants understand and construct reality during an interview.

I have to forgo writing a proper update until I finish the current round of in-depth structured interviews with ecotourism workers, park guards, loggers, and miners. I look forward to sharing a thoughtful reflection of insights I’ve gleaned since my last ethno-blog entry on children and labor in the region. In the meantime, I am posting a link to a preliminary draft of a manuscript about gold mining in Madre de Dios that I’ve been working on for publication. This version is an experimental hybrid between an academic journal article and a photo essay that combines recently collected ethnographic data, fieldwork photography, and anthropological theory on unequal ecological exchange.

The perspective I take deviates considerably from what is typically published about gold mining in Madre de Dios by posing the question: How is it that the Andean peasant who migrated to Amazonia to escape destitution and who now works double shifts operating mining machinery for a meager short-term wage has come to represent greed and unfettered capitalism rather than the multi-millionaire investment banker on Wall Street who profits most from the consequences of gold mining in Madre de Dios, including deforestation, pollution, illness, and debt peonage? This piece is about inequality and interconnections. The first part is a material analysis of the localized consequences of the global gold boom in Madre de Dios. The second part is a cultural critique that interrogates the rationale and language invoked in discourses about gold mining in the region and the global gold trade to show how the machinations of capital accumulation from gold mining are mystified, or made to seem bewildering. Read it here:

DRAFT Gold Mining and Unequal exchange in Western Amazonia- A Theoretical Photo Journal

I leave you with a photo of a sunset/rainbow/storm cloud looming over Puerto Maldonado from a few days ago. The rainy season has arrived!

---

“I moved from the sierra to Madre de Dios to work in gold mining when I was 10 years old. My parents died when I was four and I had no one else. I slept in the streets and worked on people’s chacras (plots of farmland) making about 3 soles (~$1) per day picking fruits and vegetables. But then a friend of mine told me all about the gold in Madre de Dios so we came here! I had crazy ideas when I arrived to Madre de Dios… like buying an airplane. I was so young but it seems believable because I was making five times more money panning gold, around 15 soles (~$5) per day.”                     -Armando

“Armando” (name changed to protect identity) panned gold nearly everyday for a year after arriving to Madre de Dios at the age of ten years old. Because he was a child in violation of labor laws, Armando was picked up by the Comisaría (local authorities) and was taken to Albergue Juvenil (Youth Lodge), where he was provided with meals, a bed in the dormitory, and access to education at El Colegio Simón Bolívar in the small town of Mazuko. Families that live in rural communities (often who work exclusively in mining or logging) have limited access to schooling and will sometimes send their children to live in towns with family members, friends, or at lodges (such as where Armando lived during most of his years as an orphan). Upon arriving to the youth hostel, the padrino (godfather, or sponsor) of the lodge told Armando he could not work anymore in mining and that he was only to attend school and gain vocational skills working at the lodge chacra and medicinal garden.

Armando learned to read and write along with forty other children, but despite the padrino’s orders he and several other children clandestinely worked in mining and logging during weekends and school vacations. Families that sent their children to live in the lodge often hired other lodge children to work in their mining or logging concessions. The work arrangements varied; sometimes a patrón hired children merely as obreros (laborers that were paid a fixed daily rate) to work in his own operations, while other times children paid concessionaires a small fee to log or pan gold independently on their land and were able to keep most of the profits for themselves.

---

I have begun to document the forces that shape the lives of people who as adolescents participated in the market economy in Madre de Dios. This past week I conducted a dozen in-depth structured interviews with ecotourism and conservation workers who spent their adolescence working. A few examples of interviewees and their backgrounds working as children include:

• a park ranger who worked on his family chacra (used both for commerce and subsistence) since the age of six and who continues to plant, harvest, and sell crops for his family when he is not guarding the post
• an ecotourism housekeeper who worked as a vendor and restaurant server in the informal urban economy since the age of ten to help meet the demands of her single-parent household
• a tour guide who worked with his father in mining since the age of twelve until only four years ago, once he finished his education and began a successful career as a freelance guide
• a conservation worker (biological researcher’s assistant) who as a young child escaped his abusive home and worked in castaña, timber, and hunting, during which he developed skills and knowledge that enabled him to later find more meaningful work in conservation
• an ecotourism student who migrated to Madre de Dios from Cusco, where he spent his childhood working cooperatively on the chacras of his family and neighbors through the traditional Andean system of reciprocal labor, which Quechua speakers refer to as “ayni” (click here and scroll up to pg 81 for more on the subject)

These stories and others I have recently documented reveal a high degree of variation in how people in Madre de Dios participated in the market economy since they were young children. But how does the ethnographer go about capturing the range of stories with a fixed set of interview questions? I draw on Michael Agar’s (2006) discussion of ethnographic logic to explore these complex work patterns among children in Madre de Dios. Agar describes ethnographic logic as:

• abductive (from latin,  ‘lead away’), because the ethnographer is ‘abducted’ by a new surprise , or what Agar calls a “rich point” – the stuff of of which raw ethnographic material is made. In journalism, this is akin to a journalist following a new lead or story. (As an aside, there has been a renewed interest in abductive reasoning in artificial intelligence research to get machines to think more like humans).
• iterative (from latin, ‘to repeat’), because ethnographic research consists of repetition (hence why I am conducting structured interviews with multiple participants about the same topics and themes). Iteration combined with the abductive reasoning is how ethnographers pursue new surprises; we look for new ‘rich points’ through repeating methods like interviewing a series of people.
• recursive (from latin, ‘to run away’ or ‘to run back’), because ethnography is about problem solving within problem solving (this is where it becomes a little abstract). Agar says, “Recursion helps understand when you are “done” with a particular rich point, and why some rich points are richer than others. You are done when abductive work yields no more abduction. And you are dealing with a truly spectacular rich point when the abduction seems like it will never stop, one abduction calling up another calling up another until you run out of time. Those kinds of rich points lead to book topics or even a life’s work.”

In other words, the logic of ethnographic work entails following leads, repeating the sampling approach, returning to older unsolved questions while simultaneously pursuing new ones until finding no new variation in the data or new surprises (or what some qualitative research circles call ‘saturation’).

---

Through conducting interviews this past week and asking questions about livelihoods and work histories I have discovered a fascinating complexity of work patterns in adolescents in Madre de Dios, originally prompted by the simple question, “What was the first job you had?” One thing that sets ethnographic research apart from other social scientific approaches is the abductive, iterative, recursive logic we use; had I not been an ethnographer,  I  would have simply adherd to only asking the questions on my structured interview list while ignoring these new ‘rich points’ or surprises. Through pursing new surprises in the unexpected domain of childhood work experiences I am learning tremendously about interconnections and interdependencies of biodiversity conservation and natural research extraction.

Without delving deeply into data analysis I can still describe a few general observations about work and childhood in Madre de Dios based on recent interviews. First, children often perform unpaid labor for the family as a subsistence strategy in the peasant economy in rural Madre de Dios. Second, intergenerational transmission of knowledge and experience in logging and mining is a factor that plays into whether someone who currently works in conservation has a background that includes natural resource extraction (which almost always begins by working alongside a father or uncle during adolescence). Third, children often perform paid labor in urban informal markets (in Puerto Maldonado) as an income diversification strategy of the household, especially when a parent is ill, loses a job, or the child lives in a single-parent household.

Fourth, decisions about which child of a household joins the labor force is influenced by a number of factors such as intrahousehold inequality (between men and women; seniors and juniors; nuclear and extended family), gender and age of children in the household, and broader socio-cultural and political economic forces. My  final observation for now is that sometimes children in the household are self-driven to take on work to purchase items for themselves that their families could not afford. This brings me to an interesting point that is often overlooked when the topic of ‘child labor’ is invoked. If the reader has access to the peer-reviewed academic journal Annual Review of Anthropology, see Nieuwenhuys 1996 for a review piece on child labor in anthropological research. Nieuwenhuys describes a paradoxical tension between the conceptualization of childhood on one hand and lack of institutional support for impoverished children on the other:

“[T]he moral condemnation of child labor assumes that children’s place in society must perforce be one of dependency and passivity. This denial of their ability to legitimately act upon their enviroment by undertaking valuable work makes children altogether dependent upon entitlements guaranteed by the state. Yet we must question the state’s role—as the evidence by growing child poverty caused by cuts in social spending has illuminated—in carrying out its mission.”

This is indeed an interesting paradox worth further exploration. To demonstrate this point about the troublesome cultural category of  ‘children’ as passive and dependent, I just finished interviews with two ecotourism workers this week who both worked as estibadores  (loaders) in logging operations when they were 12 and 14 years old; both of them sought out jobs on their own volition so they could buy bicycles, which their families could not otherwise afford, and they told me these stories with pride.

---

It is important to note a limitation in my work as it pertains to children and labor in Madre de Dios;  I am unable to cover the entire range of variation in work patterns given the bias of my sample (i.e. my sample is limited to people who have experience working in conservation and ecotourism, most of which grew up in households and were protected and supported by their families). While I have documented three cases of extreme exploitative child labor (each of whom were orphans), if I were to write a manuscript about child labor in Madre de Dios I would lack primary data on the exploitative dimensions of human trafficking, slave labor, and child prostitution that is far too common in and around gold mining operations in Madre de Dios. Fortunately such primary data already exist; The Institute for International Studies (IDEI, Instituto de Estudios Internacionales) based out of Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú published a report in 2009 that estimates 20 percent of children in Madre de Dios are subject to coercive labor. To put it another way, for every four children I see walking to school, playing in the plaza, or running around the market there is one child who is living an invisible life as an indentured laborer. Another great source comes from Verité (an organization that examines labor issues worldwide), who published this report that includes interview excerpts, summary of major findings, and samples of interview question.

Children from the Andes are often recruited through deceptive tactics under the guise that they will work in well-paying jobs as restaurant servers  in small riverine pueblos near mining camps or as temporarily gold miners. However, through the instrument of debt peonage, children become sequestered in these work places as slaves as their wages are gouged to pay for the exorbitant prices of their meager food provisions and bunking arrangements. Young girls cannot make enough money to survive by earning one sol (~30 U.S. cents) per each beer they sell at the cantina, so prostitution often becomes the only way for them to pay their debt and escape servitude. Young boys working in the mines are subjected to harsh conditions that often cause illnesses, which they are treated with medicine that puts them further into debt. Thus, children become perpetually subjected to unsanitary living conditions, sexual and physical abuse, and they are deprived of basic (health, mental, and emotional) necessities (see this report about trafficking of women and children in the region).

During preliminary ethnographic fieldwork for my dissertation last year I sometimes heard the terms “charapita” (little turtle) and “jovencita” (young sweet girl, the diminutive suffix ‘cita‘ denotes affection) in reference to highly desired child prostitutes who work along the river in the pueblos where miners stock up on supplies and imbibe between shifts of work. There are a staggering 2000 adolescent girls and woman working at any given time in the 400 prostibares (prostitute bars) in Madre de Dios.  During trips on the river last year I photographed mining operations with a telephoto lens only to later discover that many of the workers pushing wheelbarrows and operating the carancheras (semi-mechanized mining equipment) were children and young teenagers.

Last month I was walking down the busy Avenue Léon Velarde when I stumbled upon a parade of children marching to the Plaza de Armas (town center)— apparently it was International Day Against Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking (September 23). The commemorative day came just weeks after a major human trafficking bust in Madre de Dios in which 36 children were rescued from trafficking but the local prosecutor returned them to the community where they had been living in indentured servitude and subjected to unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and deprived of education. Hopeful news broke the morning of the International Day Against Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking that Peru will hire four special prosecutors to investigate cases of human trafficking across the country, including in Madre de Dios.

---

In addition to International Day Against Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking (September 23), I have documented a kaleidoscope of other events since returning from the jungle to Puerto Maldonado in September, including parades and danzas traditionales (traditional dances from Western Amazonia) to celebrate ecotourism, conservation, and the environment for World Tourism Day (September 27), a series of political rallies, candidate speeches, and other events that led up to very important first round of regional elections that took place on the 5th of October (and will finish in a few weeks between the two most population candidates), Festival de la Castaña Amazonica (The Amazonic Brazil Nut Festival, October 18), and most recently, the procession of El Señor de los Milagros (October 28), which has an interesting story specific to the Peruvian history of slavery, immigration, and conquest. I plan to share my experiences of these events soon (and their ethnographic importance) through writing, photography, and videography, but I’m so busy conducting interviews right now it is difficult to keep up with all the other data and content to share- so stay tuned! And thanks for reading!

In the meantime, here’s a sneak peak of a few events from around the city this past month:

“If I did not have this chamba [work] in conservation I would be cutting down tornillo [Cedrelinga cateniformis] and shihuahuaco [Dipterys sp.], making about 3 soles per foot. But it would be only for surviving, not for plata [cash]!”

---

I. Livelihood Diversification and the Moral Economy

The above quote was from a discussion while hiking in the jungle conducting participant observation with a man who depends on logging exotic wood and working in ecotourism/conservation to earn a living. One thing that might upend our understanding of local conservation in Amazonia is that while biodiversity conservation and natural resource extraction are often represented as ideologically contested (and driven by divergent material ambitions), these market sectors can be complimentary from the perspective of local labor.

While hiking with “Franco” (synonym used to protect identity) we passed by a shihuahuaco tree which I used to spark a conversation about his earning potential in timber (a technique my advisor, Jeff Cohen, and Jason de León describe in a discussion about ‘object and walking probes’). As I described in the previous ethno-blog entry, participant observation has generated meaningful experiences with research participants and has helped me identify and pursue new research questions. One of these new intellectual curiosities relates to the moral distinction Franco made between “sobrevivir” (to survive) and “plata” (cash) to contrast his situation from those of others who profit exceedingly in natural resource extraction. This binary arose at least once before with another research participant, but how does the ethnographer navigate the vast corpus of fieldwork data that spans several months (or even years) to identify and locate reoccurring themes?

I will tackle this question and describe how I curate data from prolonged periods of fieldwork to identify common themes and issues that appear across time (see video below). I will also share a few findings from participant observation research in el monte (backcountry, or jungle) to demonstrate how previously collected ethnographic data can be mobilized to design well-informed questionnaires or interviews. This recursive approach is a quintessential aspect of doing ethnographic research; in the words of anthropologist Michael Agar (2006), “At first you cast the net wide, but with time the focus narrows, within what you learned in those early wide-open days.”  As just one example of this “funneling” down process,  I now plan to use the binary of ‘surviving vs. profiteering’ that arose during participant observation fieldwork over recent months to generate structured interview questions that elicit local attitudes about capital accumulation in the extractive economy in Madre de Dios.

Future interviews based on findings from participant observation might include questions like: “What is the difference between logging to survive versus making a profit?” or “Is mining for profit morally reprehensible compared to mining only to support one’s family? Why or why not?” Another approach is to share my research findings with interviewees and ask them to address my overall question: “Why do you think some people make a moral distinction between logging to survive versus logging to profit?” These are just a few examples of questions I am currently drafting as I prepare to conduct structured interviews.

---

II. CONSUMPTION OF WILD ANIMALS

I now turn to a different research finding to further describe how participant observation can generate new questions for ethnographic interviews. One of my overall research objectives in this project is to ascertain the cultural outcomes for local people who have shifted livelihoods from natural resource extraction to biodiversity conservation. With this in mind, I became increasingly interested in the ways people who work in the conservation economy conceptualize, relate to, and interact with the surrounding animal world. The logic goes that if conservation workers are to be custodians of wildlife and their ecosystems, then we would expect that their practices with animals and their conceptions of them would vary to some degree from people who work in natural resource extraction.

To give an example, one cultural outcome of working in conservation is dietary change resulting from a shift in moral attitudes about consuming meat from wild animals (and some ecotourism workers are even vegetarians). However, through participant observation (e.g. eating meals with park guards, conservation staff, ecotourism workers, etc.) I discovered that consumption of wild animals is still a discursive practice to which some conservation workers vehemently opposed and others described with great pleasure, even noting their favorite meals like sopa de motelo (tortoise soup), caldo de coto (howler monkey stew), huevos de taricaya (turtle eggs), chicharrón de huangana (fried collared-peccary rinds), among other dishes.

Hunting of wild animals was also a particulary interesting topic that yielded great insight into local meanings of conservation. For example, a former park guard who worked at Bahuaja-Sonene National Park described conservation as a means to increase local animal populations of huanganas (white-lipped peccary, Tayassu pecari) for game hunting, which suggests that for him ‘biodiversity conservation’ does not significantly differ from ideas of natural resource preservation/wildlife management.

In addition to consuming and hunting wild animals, participant observation also led to new findings about  the domestication of wild animals (e.g. raising monkeys as pets), keeping captive animals to attract tourists at eco-lodges, and the use of metaphors comparing human behavior to particular animal species based on certain traits. For example, a few times while working alongside conservation workers I heard about the concept of cutipar, the phenomenon through which a person is “contaminated” by the characteristics of an animal, plant, or object (read more about cutipar here). While I have yet to learn the extent to which this idea is common across the mestizo population in Madre de Dios, the term “cutipado de pelejo” is sometimes used to call out a fellow coworker who is slow moving and has a lazy demeanor, like a pelejo (sloth).

To once again invoke the iterative nature of ethnographic fieldwork, returning to data from participant observation has generated new research questions to pursue through more structured, focused interviewing. Future interview questions might include: “Were you raised by your family with the idea of cutipar?” “Can you provide me with an example of when you were cutipado? What happened?” “I have heard that ‘cutipar’ is sometimes used simply to compare someone to an animal (i.e. not really invoked by someone who believes in the idea. Can you provide an example of this?”

So how might one look back at their ethnographic corpus of data collected over a long range of time to identify patterns and salient themes? To continue with the example of how conservation workers conceptualize, relate to, and interact with the animal world, I hone in on excerpts of text from field notes that pertain to hunting, food consumption, domestication of wild animals, among other related topics in which the subject of animals was mentioned (see video below). This kind of analysis takes a textual-based approach (e.g. word frequency, word co-occurrence, schema analysis, identification of metaphors and analogies, etc.), which is greatly aided by qualitative data analysis software, such as ATLASti, NVIVO, MAXQDA, NUDist (who comes up with these acroynms?), ANTHTOPAC, and so forth. For a table that compares features of different QDA software on Windows and Mac platforms, see this comparison. Also take a look at the comments section of this Savage Minds post to learn different perspectives on why some anthropologists use QDA to assist with their data. I use ATLASti because it allows me to also code photos and videos in addition to text files.  Instead of ‘dancing about architecture’ and trying to write up my approach to using QDA to code and curate data, I made a video that better elucidates the process. I also included a little original music to fill the space of dead air (though recording my voice in a rapidly developing town where a chorus of bulldozers fill the soundscape, I had to apply some noise-cancellation processing). Without further adieu, here is a crash course on using Atlas.ti with fieldwork data:

Apologies for the ethno-blog hiatus, since May I have been in el monte (i.e. backcountry, a term synonymously used with la selva, or jungle), several hours up the Madre de Dios River. I am now based in the capital city of Puerto Maldonado for a more prolonged period and will update the ethno-blog regularly. There are many exciting stories, videos, photos, and more to share in forthcoming posts! Over the past few months I have been conducting participant observation and semi-structured interviews with a variety of local people, including permanent and temporary staff at a conservation concession/biological station, eco-tour guides and operations staff (e.g. motoristas, logistics, etc.), local assistants of science investigators, and other locals whose livelihoods are intertwined with the conservation economy in Madre de Dios.

---

TRAVERSING THE LANDSCAPE

Since 2008 I have been traveling upriver to learn about the role biodiversity conservation and natural resource extraction play in local livelihoods, but I am also keenly interested in how these economies define and transform space. It was serendipitous that my longitudinal research in Madre de Dios began as the latest gold boom commenced following the global economic recession (see Asner et al. 2013). To help me understand the effects of transnational development and natural resource extraction, I have been photographing these trips for the past six years and using images as props in photo elicitation interviews and analyzing photographs using methods from cultural geography, such as landscape interpretation (see Duncan et al. 2004).

Below are a few selected photos that document the trip from Puerto Maldonado to a biological research station several hours up the Madre de Dios River:

---

PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION

My last ethno-blog update focused on semi-structured interviews I conducted with merchants of agricultural products during the paro regional (regional workers’ strike) with the objective to better understand from an emic perspective how local livelihoods were affected by the longest paro in recent history of Madre de Dios. Whereas in the last entry I described preliminary results from semi-structured interview data, in this post I will discuss a different ethnographic method—participant observation—and what kinds of insights can be gleaned by this approach.

For readers new to anthropology and the practice of ethnographic inquiry, participant observation is a cornerstone of our disciplinary methodology and involves active engagement with the people under study. As it might be inferred by the wording, participant observation entails participating in social life and simultaneously observing it. Participant observation is a craft that can be used to accomplish a variety of ethnographic undertakings, such as to:

• learn a new language/increase fluency and to gain ‘communicative competence’ (i.e. to learn about the rules of communication within a community; see Briggs 1986, read the intro book chapter HERE)
• hang out and build rapport with research participants
• reinforce neutrality (becoming aware of inherent biases based on one’s own gender, class, religious background, upbringing, etc.)
• reduce reactivity (the phenomenon in which people alter their behaviors when they know they are being studied, see Gary Larson Far Side comic below for a satirical example)

Participant observation can be useful to generate both qualitative and quantitative data; as methodologist Russ Bernard (2011: 257) describes, participant observation “puts you where the action is and lets you collect data… any kind of data you want, narratives or numbers.” Indeed, whether I am engaged in daily labor tasks with a conservation worker and eliciting narratives about risks of trapping jaguars for research (one time a jaguar suddenly awoke while undergoing an immobilization procedure and required manual restraint—the local assistant had to jump on its back) or whether I’m pursuing more quantitative questions and assessing a worker’s wage earnings as he plans his next 8-day cachuelo (temporary work) for ~1500 soles compared to his normal S./1100 monthly salary in conservation, participant observation is a powerful mixed-method for the ethnographic toolkit. See HERE for more on wage differences between gold mining and other livelihoods in Madre de Dios such as agricultural work.

For local people who have one foot in biodiversity conservation and the other in natural resource extraction (whether they work in gold mining or logging or are members of households that depend on diversification strategies that include both conservation and extraction), the use of interviews to immediately hedge into sensitive topics may not be an effective method to elicit reliable, meaningful responses. Surveys or interviews can sometimes impose a set of practices that are alien to some locals and can lead to less reliable responses than if the “interview” is unstructured through the process of participant observation in daily life.

Participant observation has generated meaningful experiences with research participants and has helped me identify and pursue new research questions. For example, hiking with a local investigator’s assistant on trails he made a decade ago and spotting wildlife together led to numerous conversations about his prior involvement in the pelt trade, a short economic boom to which some refer to as “el tiempo de piel” (the time of pelts) that has not been well documented (ethnographically or otherwise) in this region (for more on the history of wildlife hunting in Peru, see HERE).

What does it mean to be both a participant and observer? The participant-observation dichotomy poses some practical issues for conducting ethnographic research. Emerson et al. (1995:18; 2001) describe a contrast between “getting into place” to observe noteworthy events on one hand or to suspend all writerly tasks in order to participate fully and to keep the writing from intruding into relationships established in the field. The former tactic somewhat removes the ethnographer (as observer) from the scene in which he or she is embedded, while the latter approach (ethnographer as participant) requires greater reliance on ‘headnotes,’ small jottings, scratch notes, abbreviated words and phrases, and other fragments of writing that are often later expanded into fuller-fledged field documents.

The struggle to determine whether to write or engage (through participation or observation) is a central paradox for the ethnographic fieldworker-writer in general, and certainly a challenge for me during my time in el monte. There were several instances during which all I could do is recite data in my head to commit to memory, as taking notes was not physically possible or socially acceptable. To further complicate matters, my computer broke during the second month of fieldwork, which made note-taking and research more difficult because I typically type up expanded accounts and use qualitative analysis software as an organizational database and archival tool. The ethnographer’s greatest tools when technology fails is pen & paper, astuteness, and memory.

During my time as a participant observer I shadowed my research participants, engaged them in their daily tasks, and observed them interacting in both work and leisure contexts to gain a deeper understanding of what it is like to be a conservation worker in Madre de Dios. Below is brief description of some of the work positions I shadowed and observed:

• Promotores (equivalent to park ranger): Patrol river in concession, check on abandoned station, monitor wildlife, act as guide (taking groups of visitors to mammal clay licks), assisted with anaconda captures
• Motoristas/Tripulantes (boat crew member): Watch the river for potentially dangerous debris and signal the motorista to maneuver boat, help load food, baggage, and other items onto boat, and dock for bathroom breaks (pare técnico) and final arrival to destination
• Asistentes de Investigadores (Investigator assistent: Drive remote control car into giant armadillo burrows, assist in setting up animal traps, assist in tree climbing to look for raptor nests, etc.
• Macheteros (machete worker, trail-maker): sharpening machetes, create and clean trails, trim miradors/outlooks on the terraces
• Ayudantes de Cocina (kitchen helper): prepare garnishes and refresco (juice), serve food, wash plates, clean kitchen
• Mantamientos (maintenance): retrieve nonfunctional motorcar on muddy trail, transport food from port up to the terraces, repair mesh of buildings, repair rooftops
• Guias (tour guide): pick up tourists from airport, transport tourists to rainforest from city, lead tours, identify flora and fauna

Read more about participant observation in this Sage publication. The next ethno-blog post will discuss some of my findings from conducting participant observation research and informal/semi-structured interviews. Stay tuned, I have some amazing stories to share! For now, I’ll leave you with a sneak preview of a forthcoming entry about an anaconda trapping expedition I made on the Los Amigos River with the promotores:

NOTE: In case you missed it, check out my first post from the field, in which I describe arriving to Madre de Dios just as the city became militarized and region-wide protests turned violent. See my second post from the field for a brief analysis of the strike, and this short video, a montage consisting of imagery and soundscapes from conflicts between protesters and police.

---

INTERVIEWS WITH MERCHANTS DURING THE “TRUCE”

Many comerciantes (merchants) used dramatic expressions to describe business woes during the paro (strike), such as: “Queria ahorcar” (I wanted to hang myself), “Estaba aterrorizada” (I was terrified [of riot police]), “Tuve sacarse la mugre” (‘I removed the dirt’ is the literal translation, but it is an expression that means ‘I worked really hard’), and “Nos estan dejar morir” (They [the government] left us to die.”

---

Puerto Maldonado has been relatively peaceful since syndicate leaders called a tregua (truce) during Semana Santa (Holy Week), as it is bad form to protest during important holidays like Easter. Indeed, some things are still considered sacred. The truce has been suspended until further notice, which is good news for residents in Puerto Maldonado – everyone from students and teachers to merchants, mototaxi drivers, and tourism agencies. The paro, which occurred from March 25 until April 17, is the longest strike the region has experienced in recent history. It was a relief to walk to the center of town during Semana Santa to find this view of residents enjoying the holiday (rather than chanting in protest “Death to President Humala!”):

(Semana Santa in the Plaza de Armas)

The paro had a significant effect on the regional economy with losses totaling over S/.5 million (~1.8 million USD). Agriculture and tourism market sectors reported losses of over S/.2 million and S/.1.5 million, respectively. The owner of the hostel where I am staying estimates that he lost ~70 percent of business for April (mostly from domestic tourism), while a friend who works for LAN Airlines said sales were down to about 50 percent. Last week, residents were afraid the paro would continue in the coming days, so I took advantage of the tregua and planned a short study to examine the effects of the paro on agricultural livelihoods, the most affected market sector in the region.

 (Translation of sign on regional government building: “Long Live the regional strike! If there is no solution, the fight continues!”)

I recruited the help of a good friend, Tania, who is a graduate of Universidad Nacional Amazónica de Madre de Dios (UNAMAD). Tania’s support was invaluable, especially with regards to building rapport, translating slang, and understanding idioms and other locally specific expressions. Together we conducted 40 semi-structured interviews with comerciantes (merchants) of agricultural products in order to better understand from an emic perspective how local livelihoods were affected by the longest paro in recent history of Madre de Dios.

(Tania and I with our field notebooks, ready for interviews at Los Milagritos Feria, which is only open during the weekends) 

I specifically chose merchants of fruits and vegetables because (1) they are a vulnerable population, most of whom live on the margins of the economy and are thus more vulnerable to market shocks and uncertainties; and (2) the commodities they sell are particularly risky, as surplus value can be quickly converted into surplus risk through the rapid process of spoiling (especially in humid environments, which is the case here in Amazonia Peru). The unique temporal variable (i.e. short shelf life) puts agricultural comerciantes at greater risk, especially in times of paros, which are designed to be market shocks. The paro was a catalyst that turned potential profit into potential loss and I wanted to learn how comerciantes coped with this shock.

(“intermediary” merchant at the Feria Los Milagritos)

One category of questions were designed to determine how much merchants typically earn per week or month (total sales, capital, etc. to get a baseline), how much they lost during the paro (in terms of spoiled commodities and loss of income), and how they mitigated further losses (e.g. by price adjustment, clandestine sales, support through special seller-client relationships, and so forth).

(fresh fruit at a small fruit market near Mercado Modelo, an important commercial area of town)

I was aware that many merchants are members of syndicates that participated in the strikes, so I also pursued these interviews as opportunities to better understand protesters’ motivations for supporting the strike (e.g. whether comerciantes marched out of obligation to their syndicate, coercion or fear of retribution if their businesses remained open, or on their own volition and in solidarity with other protesters). I was also curious about their attitudes toward new laws that sparked the paro (and thus, their political orientation to key issues, such as mining, government control of resources, among other controversial topics).

Furthermore, interviewing ‘huelgistas‘ (strikers) while they were back to work rather than marching the streets allowed me to explore a fomenting labor movement without greatly endangering myself; it was impossible to conduct interviews while a faction of protesters vandalized private property and attacked pedestrians and people on motorcycles, or while Peruvian National Police tear gassed  civic workers during a peaceful demonstration, and even opened fire at protesters and residents just a couple of weeks ago.

(the last day of protests prior to the Easter truce)

It is crucial to point out that comerciantes do not constitute a homogenous population. Thus, we interviewed comerciantes who occupy different levels of a market hierarchy to explore the variation of this population. Our study delineates the following categories of merchants:

• mayoristas, who move large volumes of fruits and vegetables at the weekend-only feria (fair), most of whom have their own modes of transportation from Cusco, where much of their produce are grown, to Madre de Dios.
•  intermediarios (intermediaries), who buy from mayoristas and typically sell at the major markets in town (e.g.  Mercado Modelo and Mil Ofretas, two of the market sites where we conducted interviews). However, some smaller business owners have their own small chakras (croplands) of plantains, passion fruit, yucca, and papaya here in Madre de Dios.
• venderores, or street sellers who typically buy from intermediarios at the market and sell in small groups of other street vendors around the market (some put together bags of mixed vegetables for soups).
• ambulantes, mobile vendors who sell fruit out of a cart.

(‘un ambulante’ – mobile fruit vendor who sells mandarins, polmagrantes, grapes, passion fruit, and apples near the Mercado Modelo)

(mayoristas at the Feria Los Milagritos)

---

PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS

I have not yet completed data analysis of these interviews but several patterns have already emerged from interviewing, digitizing field notes, and looking over data:

(1) THE AFFECTS OF LOSS: Though it is no surprise that every class of merchant lost a significant amount of money during the paro, most comericantes lost at least 50 percent of their monthly salary and several interviewees did not break even (they either took out loans or dipped into savings to cover business expenses). Many comerciantes used strong affective expressions to describe feelings of hopelessness during the paro, such as:

 “Queria ahorcar” (I wanted to hang myself), “Estaba aterrorizada” (I was terrified), “Tuve sacarse la mugre” (‘I removed the dirt’ is the literal translation, but it is an expression that means ‘I worked really hard’), “Nos estan dejar morir” (They [the government] left us to die,” and so forth.

(2) TEMPERING THE MARKET SHOCK: Another interesting finding is that comerciantes mitigated and minimized losses through a variety of strategies; the most salient include: (1) “descargar” (to offload or discharge) through clandestine sales of quick-spoiling fruits and vegetables in the “mañanitas” (early mornings, usually from around 3am to 6am) in various street locations or privately at a merchant’s home on their back patios, even though they were obligated to comply with syndicate rules that strictly prohibits selling; (2) street auctions of fruits and vegetables that were nearly spoiled in order to “recuperar el capital” (to recoup capital) i.e. break even on expenses; (3) private commerce with “clientes fijos” (fixed clients) in which comercicantes were reliant on pre-existing relations with repeat clients (e.g. restaurant owners, merchants for mining associations, etc.); (4) price adjustments, including price lowering to quickly sell spoiling goods and price raising to recoup losses during the month; and (5) cooperative pooling, in which merchants contributed resources for an olla comunitaria (communal pot), as food resources became more scarce. Merchants also took shifts watching over the market when it was closed to ensure no looters took from their fruit stands, which were only protected by tied-down tarps.

(3): THE MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF “APOYO EL PARO” (“I SUPPORT THE STRIKE”): Most interviewees participated in marches during the paro and expressed some degree of what they called “apoyo” (support). However, this term lacks a monolithic definition and should be understood as a complex signifier with multiple meanings:

• Many comerciantes protested for a few days out of compliance or obligation to their respective syndicate president or they would otherwise receive a multa (fine).
• Comerciantes who were independent also marched, though often under duress and out of fear that huelgistas (strikers) from out of town would retaliate against them by burning down their fruit stand if they did not participate in marches and demonstrations.
• Comerciantes (including those who were members of syndicates) marched on their own volition and some did so for the entire length of the paro. While their reasons for protesting were manifold, the most common response given during interviews was “No somos narcotraficantes” (We are not drug traffickers), which was in direct response to a new government decree to put a quota on gasoline coming into the region on the basis that narcotrafficking is rampant (since the protests ended, the insinuation of narcotrafficking was dropped  from the decree and replaced with illegal mining). The reaction to the language of this decree was so strong that around 2000 members of indigenous communities traveled to Puerto Maldonado to participate in protests this April.

(4): OUTSIDERNESS: Conceptions of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ appeared in several interviews, but what was particularly interesting is the variation in who constitutes an outsider, including:

• Foreign businesses from the U.S. (namely Hunt Oil, in reference to Lot 76 which is estimated to hold 12 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 90 percent of which inconveniently overlaps with mining concessions and protected areas for conservation and indigenous groups, see here), but also large mining operations based out of Russia, China, and other foreign nations. Many interviewees lamented that “Madre de Dios has been sold to outsiders.”
• Miners, most of whom are migrants from the Andean region of Cusco or Puno. Some interviewees contended that “miners are not from here” and that they contribute very little to the local economy, while others were sympathetic to miners’ grievances that the central government is making it impossible for them to formalize. Statements like “no poner les trabas” (don’t put on the shackles) appeared a few times during interviews. Another dimension of outsiderness in relation to mining  is that informal work is increasingly becoming outside the law, and thus illegitimate in the eyes of the state, which is now retaliating with force.
• National Police and politicians in Lima, who have a monopoly of power over determining the fate of the region. The state’s reputation has only worsened since the paro, when national police looted “ollas comunitarias” (community pots) and personal effects of residents in Mazuko (caught on tape), tear gassed civil workers on the Billinghurst Bridge, and opened gunfire at protesters and residents on the Interoceanic Highway in Puerto Maldonado. Lack of response from Lima only further signified the marginal status of Madre de Dios. “Does Ollanta [current president of Perú] even realize that we are in Perú?” – was a common rhetorical question asked throughout the weeks of protests.(Lot 76, which many protesters contend is evidence that the Peruvian government is ‘selling out Madre de Dios to foreigners,’ such as U.S. hydrocarbon company Hunt Oil)

---

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Our requests to interview potential research participants were often met with curious (and sometimes suspicious) questions like, “para que?” (i.e. for what reason are you interviewing people?). I explained that as an anthropologist, I am interested in the social and material realities for people living in Madre de Dios and that most available information about the regional economy is from the perspective of economists in Lima and abroad rather than from the local population. Explanations like this encouraged merchants to share their experiences and discuss their contentions with a number of issues.

(the edge of Mercado Modelo, which was shut down for most of the paro)

The next step for this particular project is to convert interview data into a matrix and to systematically code responses using inductive and in vivo protocols to identify other patterns and to look for co-occurring themes. This will be a time-consuming task for 40 interviews and I am about to start another phase of research that will consume most of the daylight hours. Tomorrow we are heading into a remote part of the Madre de Dios region to spend time at a conservation concession, where I will work alongside ‘rangers’ as they patrol concession territory, conduct transects, prepare meals for tourists and groups of students taking field courses, and a number of other activities. I will likely not have reliable Internet access until July or August, but I will attempt to post a text-only blog entry in the coming weeks if time and radio-tower Internet speed permit. I am looking forward to the spectacular sunsets over the Madre de Dios River from the mirador (lookout), such as this one from fieldwork in mid-2013:

 (sunset of beautiful saturated colors over the Madre de Dios River)

 

WHY CIVIL SOCIETY IS ON STRIKE

Over the past two days the soundscape of horns, whistles, megaphones, and screaming has been replaced by the sounds of children playing on the street, emulating the conflict between protesters and police as they vocalize the sounds of tear gas explosions, city-wide sirens and emergency vehicles, repeating chants from strikers and the descriptions of vandalism and looting as reported in the local news. “Maldito!” one of the children screams as the other throws a rock at the wall as if he was a huelguista (striker) while proclaiming “¡Viva la huelga!” (Long live the strike!).

(huelguistas, some throwing stones at buildings while marching)

Last weekend we roamed freely through the streets before things escalated and as leaders called a two-day “tregua” (truce) so that protesters could rest and stock up on supplies. This weekend we are afforded another tregua, which is a relief because the city is running out of food and the cost of basic staples is significantly rising (we ate the last of our mangos and mandarins yesterday for lunch). Small stores and street kiosks have begun to sell food at inflated prices – reports have come in that 1kg of chicken currently costs about 16 soles (~5.75 USD), a tin of tuna is 7-8 soles (~2.50 USD), and mototaxi drivers are charging twice as much now that there is a fuel shortage in town. Hopefully supplies will soon arrive to town.

(mototaxi driver, apparently a risky job during la huelga)

The Peruvian Marines arrived yesterday to provide support for the national police and to guard Padre Aldamiz International Airport. Some welcome the marines with hopes that peace will be restored, while others resent the increased militarized presence in town and conclude that “para este gobierno la solucion es la represion” (for this government, the solution is repression). While the airport has received additional security protection, main roads leading to it have been blocked by large tree limbs, incinerated trash and tires, and scattered concrete chunks and large boulders. One might encounter this impasse if they are unfamiliar with backroads through town (photo courtesy of La Revista MDD):

(Avenida Dos De Mayo- a main road is blocked by a fire)

This strike is not simply another paro minero (miner’s strike); Madrediosenses (residents of Madre de Dios) have several grievances that extend beyond policies that strictly affect the mining sector. For instance, some residents have expressed anger with the lack of government support after the region experienced tremendous flooding during the months of January and February, which affected over 8,000 people, 15 educational institutions, and caused 80 million soles (~28.5 million USD) worth of damage to agricultural lands (e.g. plantains, cassava, rice, maize, and papaya) and fish farms, leaving some who invested in large plots saddled with significant unpaid debts. Read more about it here and here.

(recent flooding in Puerto Viejo, old town in Puerto Maldonado, photo courtesy of La Revista, Madre de Dios)

Another grievance is that civic workers have received meager raises (e.g. 100 soles per month, or ~35 USD) compared to politicians in Lima who enjoy raise increases by several thousand soles. Economists celebrate this developing country whose GDP has grown significantly in recent years despite worldwide market vicissitudes and the global economic recession, but many Peruvians contend that they are excluded from the benefits of ‘development’ and ‘growth’ while inequality continues to characterize much of the relationship between Lima and its peripheries, a model described as centralismo.

(distribution of national budget, per each department)

Building on these myriad disenchantments, FEDEMIN (The Federation of Mining in Madre de Dios, the regional syndicate) has successfully built solidarity with workers from other market sectors in the region and spearheaded the ‘Indefinite Strike of Civil Society.’ Many people in this region agree that the central government’s efforts to eradicate much of the gold mining sector in Madre de Dios over recent years is leaving thousands of people with few economically viable alternatives. As one miner told me in 2013, “What am I to do, let my family starve? What other options do I have?”

(children who live in one of the many mining riverine communities along the Madre de Dios River)

The current strike was mobilized against Decreto Supremo  N° 015-2013-IN, a decree which establishes the Régimen de Control de Combustible (Fuel Control Regimen). The Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) seeks to address what they call “tráfico de combustibles” (fuel traffickers), an indirect measure to eradicate illegal gold mining operations in the region, though the government also claims that the fuel is used to process cocaine and transport it through the region. “No somos narcotraficantes” (We are not drug traffickers) has been a common chant in protests this past week. Officials claim that the new fuel restrictions will only affect illegal activities; however, tap associations claim that the economy in 12 regions will be affected (see here).

(a medium-size boat carrying large cylinders of gasoline, taken during a trip up the Madre de Dios River in 2013)

In 2012, 147,840 gallons of gasoline were supposedly sold for vehicles in the region. According to these figures, each vehicle in Madre de Dios consumes the absurd amount of 110 gallons per day, an estimate inflated by the informal fuel market. I began to learn about this issue during preliminary dissertation research in the region during 2013 (one  motorista told me about parts of the Interoceanic Highway where he used to stop at night and wait for someone to come out of the bush to sell him fuel).

(miners in Laberinto hauling gasoline and other mining equipment to the boat launching area, taken during fieldwork in 2013)

How does this new fuel decree relate to mining? Most of the machinery used in gold mining runs on small or mid-size motors that require gasoline to operate. For example, Chupaderas, which use two motors to move water and slurry through plastic hosing and pvc pipes, burn through a 50-gallon cylinder of gasoline every 12 hours.

(caranchera operation on the Madre de Dios River, taken from fieldwork during 2013)

During fieldwork last year, I often sat at the top of the terraces overlooking the Madre de Dios River and monitored the supply boats going up and down the river. A cargo completo (boat that carries maximum capacity) usually contains several dozen crates of Cusqueña beer or 50-gallon cylinders of gasoline, both of which ‘fuel’ mining, but in different ways.

(boat carrying several 50-gallon cylinders of gasoline to mining towns on the Madre de Dios River)

In an interview with El Comercio, the High Commissioner on Affairs of Mining Formalization and Interdiction of Illegal Mining and Environmental Remediation, Daniel Urresti, said, “[W]e will cut off the blood of illegal mining.” The strategy is two-fold: (1) to regulate fuel through a checkpoint on the Inambari bridge, which divides Puno, Madre de Dios, and Cusco; and (2) to create a register for buyers of mercury and arsenic (which are used to separate gold from other materials) to further regulate access to crucial mining supplies. This ‘chemical inputs’ strategy compliments recent military interventions in the region. Just last year, the military destroyed 897 mining operations in Madre de Dios, including many gringo balsas and chupaderas (these are different mechanized and semi-mechanized mining methods of primarily alluvial gold extraction). The government still has its eye on over 4,000 operations in the large deforested mining landscapes of Mega 11, La Pampa, and Huepetuhe.

(large, now-illegal dredger, taken in 2010 before the ban on alluvial mining went into effect)

Much remains unknown regarding how the government plans to address the manifold grievances of people in this region who are currently striking, but one thing is for certain – the move towards formalizing the mining economy is not reversible and the government will continue to aggressively address illegal mining activities (see here for a description of the difference between informal and illegal mining, and here for an infograph from SPDA, the Peruvian Society for Environmental Rights). Many people in the region support the government’s efforts to tackle issues associated with illegal mining, including deforestation, mercury contamination of waterways and food sources, loss of biodiversity, and numerous social problems such as human trafficking, prostitution, child labor, and debt servitude.

For others, the problem is more complicated and the solutions are not so clear; one salient pattern I have identified after conducting ethnographic interviews with over 100 people in the region from 2010-2014 (many of which have worked in ecotourism or in other conservation-based lines of work) is that gold mining has played a significant role in sustaining households and providing education for children and young adults. For many people who endure the hardship of temporary work contracts in other market sectors, gold mining can provide quick, reliable cash injections into the household to pay for basic needs. As part-time work in mining becomes a less viable livelihood strategy, people hope the government will help to provide alternatives – this hope unifies many people regardless of their position on mining, and it is one reason people have taken to the streets to petition their government.

 

LA HUELGA INDEFINIDA DE LA SOCIEDAD CIVIL

(Indefinite Strike of Civil Society)

(protesters march down blockaded streets)

As I write these notes, gunshots can be heard from multiple locations around our hostel. Sirens echo off building walls. Engines rev in the background as mototaxis speed down the streets to escape the dangerous conflict between protesters and riot police. Earlier this week miners littered the streets with tacks and nails to deflate the tires of mototaxi drivers who were not observing the miner’s strike—and that was when things were “pacifico” (peaceful). Today, crowds of protestors flooded the swelteringly hot streets of Puerto Maldonado, hurling rocks toward national police armed in riot gear, who responded by deploying canisters of tear gas (I did not anticipate I would be searching online how to use vinegar to mitigate the effects of tear gas, but fieldwork is apparently full of surprises, starting with the tsunami warning in Lima the first day we arrived to the country).

 

(riot police in the plaza de armas in Puerto Maldonado)

I walked down the street and caught a glimpse of the scene before hurrying back to our hostel to seek refuge. I snapped a few photos of a fire in the middle of the street and two older Andean women passed by, speaking Quechua (their native language) to extend an invitation for me to join the protest. To their surprise, I replied in Quechua, declining their offer and politely wishing them a happy day. Amused that a random gringo on the street would reply in their native language, they further encouraged me to join the protest, “Jamuy, qhari!” (come with us, man!), they maintained.

(protestors down the street setting fire to tires and trash)

Earlier this morning I woke to the sound of SWAT police as they announced their presence through megaphones, patrolling our street— apparently a harbinger of things to later come today. Now we are sequestered in our room, eating sweet potato chips and mandarins awaiting news from Lima and hoping a resolution is passed to restore peace to the region. This, I am learning, is just one aspect of what it is like to be a denizen of Puerto Maldonado, a city occupied and militarized by around 5,000 miners and 800 national and local police engaged in violent conflict. Many locals are disenchanted with the strike and want it to end. Schools are closed. Streets are blockaded.  Some miners have even been throwing stones through glass windows and doors – minutes ago they just passed our hostel and we could hear the raining down of boulders and rocks. A man ran past the buildings on our street yelling, “Cierra las puertas, gente!” (Close/lock your doors, people!). Car parts are burning in the middle of major roads and our fear that the strike would descend into violence finally came true this afternoon. Things escalated after reports last night that two protesters were killed in the nearby town of Mazuko, where police had been looting earlier this week. La Revista de Madre de Dios, a local news organization reports (translated into English):

We call all our citizens who take appropriate security measures, not to risk their lives crossing the streets in any type of vehicle, the protesters take it as provocation, do not allow children, elderly or pregnant women out of their homes, it is preferable to take guard since the police are already throwing tear gas canisters, so have buckets or containers with water ready, cloths or wet rags with vinegar. Try to stay closed somewhere in your house, otherwise go to a safe place (neighbors, friends, family). Everything for the sake of our integrity.

We have been residing in Puerto Maldonado in the southeastern Amazonian region of Perú for exactly one week. Our arrival was timely –just a few days after the start of La huelga indefinida de la sociedad civil (The indefinite strike of civil society), organized jointly by the regional and federal mining syndicates, FEDEMIN and CONAMI, respectively. These kinds of strikes are responses to a series of developments at the national level, including decrees to criminalize informal mining and military interdictions in the region since 2011 (for more on this subject see the page (http://theobrero.com/gold/). This strike in particular was elicited by a decree to control fuel entering the region and other efforts to formalize miners by the imminent deadline of April 19, 2014, an impossible task in this frontier region. There is a lot more contributing to this particular strike (e.g. politics in Lima, charges that the region is complicit in narcotrafficking, etc.) which I will expound upon in my next field note.

(protesters throwing rocks at buildings)

Upon arriving to Puerto Maldonado a week ago, we first noticed that Puerto Maldonado was more crowded than during previous visits over the past six years, especially in the central area, where traffic has doubled and clusters of miners could be see hanging out on the streets and in the doorways and balconies of local hostels that are normally vacant. Serengazo (the local emergency police) are on the beat, but now accompanied by hundreds of national police in riot gear like helmets and shields and armed with automatic rifles and grenades of tear gas.

(riot police patrolling the streets in front of Billinghurst Bridge, the Interoceanic Highway)

A familiar scene in Puerto Maldonado is of children happily playing on the sidewalks in front of their parents’ retail stores, but everything is shut down now because of la huelga indefinida. A few days ago we were eating lunch at a restaurant located on the Interoceanic Highway (one of the only major restaurants in town that remains open during the day when the strike is active), when we suddenly heard loud voices approaching. A small crowd appeared nearby the restaurant and a few servers stood petrified with looks of terror on their faces as if an attack was looming. One of the customers immediately rose from his chair, almost knocking it onto the ground, clenching his fists as if prepared to defend himself and his company. Fortunately, the protesters continued marching down the highway and the atmosphere of the restaurant returned to normal. Everyday since then we can hear low-flying helicopters patrolling over the city.

(army helicopter flying over Puerto Maldonado)

As mentioned, last night there were reports that two protesters were shot and killed by police in Mazuko, where the strike has been more violent. A few days prior a video was leaked showing police looting the town, taking staples, burning people’s possessions –it is uncertain whether we should be more fearful of the protestors or the police, and I imagine residents here feel similarly. Hopefully soon it will be safe to return to the streets to conduct interviews and learn more about people’s conceptions of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ of Puerto Maldonado, but for now people are still walking by our hostel throwing stones at buildings.

Here is a video of the conflict in the nearby town of Mazuko (things escalate at about 1:30 into the video)

More soon…