In search of local power. Rise community leadership in connection with the installation of an energetic project: the case of the rural community of Andaymarca, Huancavelica

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to show in an ethnographic way the reconfiguration process of communal political leadership in two simultaneous situations: the insertion of a megaproject of energetic nature and the crisis of politic representation of traditional authorities. Nowadays in Peru, the presence of megaprojects promoted through private inversions have caused changes in the internal political dynamics of the localities where they are inscribed. In our case, the effect that has provoked the entry of energetic project “Cerro del Águila’s Hydroelectric Central” in the rural community of Andaymarca, Huancavelica, will be treated. This enterprise seems to be the second with more energetic production in a national level. The main result has been in the political area, through the incursion of a leadership kind that mobilizes its own resources (social capital, cultural and symbolic) and specifies it through a charismatic domination, with the objective of creating local bonds and using it in an strategic way in two directions: towards the negotiations with the energetic project and towards the collective mobilization to capture State, as the district local government. In this way, the objective resides in showing how the communal leadership is activated and redefined and its importance in the actual role of the local leaderships.