Congratulations to CrimSL PhD candidate Diego Tuesta whose paper "Penal extractivism: A qualitative study on punishment and extractive industries in Peru" was published online in the journal Punishment & Society on June 8, 2024.
Diego co-authored the paper with Professor Maritza Paredes of Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He comments on their collaboration:
Professor Maritza Paredes
My co-author, Professor Maritza Paredes, is an old friend of mine from Peru. Back in the day, I worked as a TA for her methods class. When I learned about the Dean’s Indigenous Initiative Fund at the University of Toronto I thought of Maritza's research on environmental conflicts in Peru and the issue of criminalization there and reached out to her. We started thinking about whether there was something specific regarding punishment and extractive protests in Latin America that we could explore together. We decided to join forces and embark on this project. Collaborating with an expert on extractive industries was intellectually very stimulating. We learned a lot about each other, both as friends and as colleagues, from the challenges we overcame along the way in producing the paper. - Diego Tuesta
Diego describes the paper in a post on X, saying, "We introduce penal extractivism as a category that aims to connect punishment studies with research on extractivism. We also analyze evidence from the Espinar mining conflict in Peru."
Professor Matthew Light, his supervisor, commented on the paper on X that "Many Global South countries, as well as Global North ones like Canada, depend on extractive industries, protest movements against which elicit a distinctive, stringent criminal justice response."
The research and writing process for this paper took co-authors Diego and Maritza several years. During this time, Diego visited Peru to perform field research.
(L) Map, province of Espinar, Peru. Source: M. Paredes | (R) Citizens of Espinar. Photo by anonymous informant.
The importance of penal extractivism
Diego says, "Our research is important for at least two reasons: one sociological, the other historical in nature.
"The first reason is that extractive industries play a crucial role in our lives. What we eat, the technology we use, our transportation means — these all depend on some form of resource extraction.
"Nations across the globe view extractive industries as essential sources of income and development, and thereby implement penal measures to protect them from external disruptions. These measures include critical infrastructure legislation that facilitates the over-policing of social mobilizations; the criminal prosecution of environmental defenders; and state-of-emergency declarations to deter protesters and increase control over the lands and territories where extractive industries operate."
Police handling of protest, Espinar, Peru. Photo by anonymous informant.
"Rural populations across the Americas currently experience environmental and penal suffering. The global importance of the mining-penality nexus in the contemporary context of social mobilization justifies an in-depth criminological and sociological analysis.
"The second reason this is a timely and important topic is that punishment and extractivism have an intimate, historical relationship. The workhouse, a forerunner of today’s prisons, operated with inmates processing timber and other raw materials. Deportation in Europe, another emblematic penal practice, sent prisoners to the colonies to work in the despoiled lands of Indigenous peoples.
"Punishment and extractivism entail distinct albeit historically interrelated political economies, a relationship largely overlooked by scholars in the respective fields of extractivism and punishment studies. There is a huge gap in that intersection, so we tried to articulate these two bodies of work by introducing the concept of penal extractivism. We argue that it overcomes the shortcomings of criminalization, protest policing, social control and labour discipline, all classic notions in the sociological and criminological traditions.
"We hope our study will set the ground for comparative research between local cases, and that activists, policymakers and scholars will find “penal extractivism,” or “extractive penalty,” a useful idea."
Motivation for this study
Diego says, "I was driven to this research by curiosity about the variegated nature of punishment in modern societies, particularly in Latin America. I also wanted to draw attention to penal development in the extractive field (and vice versa, extractivism in the sociology of punishment), and that was my incentive to come up with the idea of extractive penality."
When asked if the research was a side-trip from his thesis, he says, "This study is tied to my PhD thesis [Prosecutorial Discretion and Racial Over-Representation in Ontario, Canada: Between the Power to Punish and the Power to be Lenient] and to my interest in developing conceptual tools based on grounded empirical research. My coauthor’s knowledge, lessons and experiences surrounding the Espinar case in Peru also played a crucial role. From her I learned that the story of environmental and penal suffering needed to be told and interrogated in sociological and criminological terms."
Overcoming challenges and setbacks
"This study involved a lot of hard work, planning and coordination," says Diego. "It felt a bit like an ordeal at times, to be honest. The pandemic delayed our fieldwork research for nearly two years. At one point, I regretted obtaining the grant as it felt like it was slowing my progress in other areas.
"Pierre Bourdieu once said that research is an administrative endeavour more than an intellectual task. And sure, it is.
"The hardest part was coordinating data collection, given the incompatible agendas of our research team members and the reigning social turmoil in Peru.
"Some of these organizational difficulties continued throughout the writing and peer review process.
"I felt that the peer-review process for a top journal, while long, significantly improved the quality of our paper. I thought it was a rigorous and constructive process. The exchanges and obstacles we faced during peer review helped me grow as a scholar."
"I’m happy with how it all turned out. In retrospect, it was important to persevere and play the game day by day without obsessing too much with the outcome — that’s actually in theory, because in practice, I did become a little obsessed.
Acknowledgement of funding support
This research project was funded by the University of Toronto Faculty of Arts & Science Dean’s Indigenous & International Initiatives Fund. Financial support was also provided by the CrimSL Research Cluster for the Study of Racism and Inequality (CSRI).
Abstract
This article introduces the concept of penal extractivism in the punishment and society literature. We define penal extractivism as the punitive strategies that a state implements to safeguard extractive industries from citizens’ contention. This concept addresses the limitations of categories like criminalization, protest policing, social control, and labour discipline while bridging the gap between punishment studies and research on extractive industries. Additionally, we draw upon evidence of the Espinar mining conflict in Peru to explain five punitive strategies the state uses to handle protests: (1) off-duty policing and critical assets legislation, (2) state of emergency declarations, (3) police or prosecutorial notes against environmental defenders, (4) criminal indictments, and (5) the transferring of criminal cases to distant jurisdictions. Based on our findings, we argue that penal extractivism is a dynamic and ambivalent project that targets marginalized rural populations. The state partially deters mobilizations but fails to address the underlying social unrest, reinforcing the conditions that perpetuate mining conflicts. This in-depth within-case analysis examines the relationship between punishment and extractivism in the global context of contemporary social mobilizations.
Read the full paper
Tuesta, D., & Paredes, M. (2024). "Penal extractivism: A qualitative study on punishment and extractive industries in Peru." Punishment & Society, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14624745241258894.
