Our Research
"Conflicts over the countryside: Civil society and the political ecology of rural development in the Andean Region"
This research draws in part on ongoing and earlier research exploring: the social movements that have emerged in areas affected by mining in Peru and Ecuador; the factors driving the geographies of NGO intervention and their effects on rural livelihoods and economies in Peru and Bolivia; the relationships between European NGOs and selected indigenous organisations in the Amazonian lowlands of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.
All this defines a programme of work analyzing the factor driving the geographies of civil society organizations, and the ways in which they affect political economies of development in two types of region: those characterized by palpably stagnant rural economies, and those whose rural economies are being transformed by the practice (or possibility of) external investment in extractive industries.
At the same time the research will link regional analysis with national and international dynamics and actors. In particular, the research will consider how far civil society actors have influenced national debates and policy formation on the roles of extractive industries and the small farm economy in national development strategies in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia