‘"IT'S NOT MY STORY": THE DEVELOPMENT DISCONNECT BETWEEN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE NARRATIVES OF COMMUNITIES IMPACTED BY MINING IN PERU'S ANDES’

Abstract

This thesis examines the disconnect between the stated intentions of mining companies and narratives of hegemonic dispossession from mining-affected communities in the Andean region of Peru. The study focuses on Barrick Gold Corporations’ operations in rural Peruvian communities to illustrate how policy decisions and corporate privilege in Canada, and globally, construct hegemonic processes of development broadly. The research question asks how the mining industry frames its intentions so that civil society in Canada subscribes to the interest of this elite group. Findings from two case studies in rural Peru show that the mining industry uses instrumental tools such as Sustainable Development (SD), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and partnerships with NGOs to create an illusion of shared values with civil society. The presence of a transnational capitalist class (TCC) is evidenced by examples of collaboration between government and corporate efforts. I argue that a TCC enables global mining to maintain an influential role in shaping economic and political agendas that hinder development behind a guise of responsible and sustainable behaviour. A local-level analysis of Barrick Gold Corporation’s actions in Peru is connected to global economic and political trends to show how hegemony serves the maintenance of neoliberal economic growth instead of social development.