Campesino Communities in North Peru: Local Consequences of Globalization

Campesino (farm worker) communities in North Peru have not benefitted well from globalization because of a national devotion to capitalism and the global market's need for export goods. The consequence of the new focus is that a balanced national infrastructural development is neglected in favor of a centralized, stripped-down, militarized state designed to facilitate resource exploitation and exports to service the gobal economy. Following a trip to the area in 2007, we analyze the various ways poor communities in the area have been touched by the new wave of globalization and the new export crops that are favored. This interview-based study examines the worsening situation of rural poor people in terms of access to land, water, production, and more general infrastructure due to the economic consequences of globalization. This paper is critical of national "false populism" that does not take poor people's interests into account and calls for a system that is attentive to the need of marginalized people to gain political and economic power.