“Can we do it ourselves?”: indigenous monitoring, sociotechnical controversies and power ambivalences in territories affected by oil exploitation, Peru

Abstract

This study is an ethnographic exploration of sociotechnical controversies and power ambivalences surrounding pollution generated by oil extraction in concessions 192 (formerly 1AB) and 8, in the Northern Peruvian Amazon, overlapping indigenous territories. Through its regulatory science, the state wields control over the production and interpretation of information related to pollution and its potential impacts, thereby perpetuating racist and exclusionary governance practices that benefit extractive companies. In response, indigenous communities have adapted traditional territorial vigilance practices, utilizing new information technologies to document, denounce, and shed light on the impacts of oil extraction. Within this context, the article delves into the following questions: Is regulatory science exclusively a hegemonic mechanism of domination? Do the information technologies employed by indigenous communities subvert power relations in contexts of industrial pollution? How do researchers contribute to various reproductions of power? Through these reflections, we critically examine regulatory science, the technical praxis of indigenous monitoring, and the production of social science.  We observe unexpected ambivalence in the entanglements of power, resistances, and asymmetries.