Climate Change and Mining Extraction among the Q’ero (Peruvian Andes)
Changes in the environment due to global causes, such as global warming, or local causes, such as mining, affect several Andean populations, such as the Q’ero (Peruvian Andes). The issues involved lead to numerous controversies in both the political and academic fields. Although links exist for example between the scientific discourse on climate change and the observations of native populations concerning their ecological environment, numerous players with specific realities coexist. Based on a political ontology approach, this article intends to show that there are not only different points of view concerning the expected solutions but, at a far earlier stage, different ways of understanding the factors involved, their causes and their influences. Indeed, only a part of the problem can be clearly shown by means of the conceptual dichotomy between nature and culture or, in other words, physical facts and cultural interpretations. In such controversial situations, strict and impervious dualisms do not last long.