Mining movements and political horizons in the Andes: Articulation, democratisation, and worlds otherwise

This chapter discusses the recent history of scholarship and activism related to Latin American social movements. Social movements have long been an anchor of scholarly interest and solidarity work in Latin America. Study of, and engagement with, movements has been situated within attempts at theorising processes of political-economic and cultural transformation, generally working with the assumption that social movements play a central role therein. In the wake of the eruption of new social movements (NSMs), Indigenous movements took on a heightened visibility, both for their centrality in the Andes, but also for their connections to international legal debates and the boom in international development aid that accompanied the neoliberal retrenchment of the 1980s and 1990s. In a legal analysis on the most viable mechanism for ensuring free, prior and informed consent to mining projects, McGee posits community referenda as the best way of reducing violence and promoting community participation in mining decision-making.