Authoritarian escalation in Peru: Extractivism, racial discrimination and democracy

The current political crisis in Peru manifests long-standing social discontent over historical ethnic, class and environmentalinequalities that are largely created and supported by the extractivist model. Traditionally, extractivism has developed in the country in a localized authoritarian manner. Emergency decreessuspending fundamental rights and guarantees and opening spaces for the disproportionate use of public force happenedonly in particular zones of social conflict. Extractivism has imposed itself within racist imaginaries rooted in how society is territorially distributed. Theseimaginaries depoliticize specific rural communities by recognizing only as a valid political agenda their struggle againstpoverty and welfare and nothing else. The current crisis is not an authoritarian turn but the escalation of a regime that has already been authoritarian forracialized and excluded sectors of society.