Practicas resistentes y alternativas en el territorio de Cajamarca-Tolima frente al proyecto minero La Colosa.

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to explain the multidimensionality of the socio-environmental conflict, due to the introduction or development? of “La Colosa Mining Project”, from the extractive device and the emergence of resistant and alternative practices in defense of water, life and territory in Cajamarca (Tolima-Colombia). In this sense, the study is carried out under the political ecology perspective, and is in the area of interdisciplinary social research, within the power and politic line. In the state of art, three axes were defined around mining, resistance and territory that allowed the bibliographic and critical review, this triangulation led to a theoretical framework in which the categories of analysis which emerged were: A) Extractivism, B) Political Ecologies, C) Common Goods. The research strategies applied were from the documentary analysis, the voices and embodied experiences of the resistant subjects and actors related to the socio-environmental conflict. The obtained results evidenced a series of systematic actions from the mining sector seek to establish mega-mining in the region; moreover, in the face of permanent anti-mining mobilizations, a popular consultation was held in which people of Cajamarca unanimously expressed their rejection. As a consequence, La Colosa mining project has been temporarily suspended. This research project enables to conclude that the resistant and alternative practices in Cajamarca have been a long and sustained process with the communities and different social organizations at the local, regional and global level, which coincide in the conceptions regarding the defense of water, life and territory. In this sense, it has empowered and constituted a political and alternative movement, which has allowed reconfiguring the political power at the municipal level, as well as, stopping the advance of extractivism (to date) in the municipality of Cajamarca.