Violence in the Shadows: Corporate Social Responsibility, Protest, and Mining in Peru

In Violence in the Shadows, Jonathan Kishen Gamu challenges the supposedly progressive nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a catalyst for more accountable and humane forms of corporate capitalism. He shows that within the global mining industry, human rights abuse, environmental destruction, marginalization, and violent social conflict persist despite widespread CSR uptake among major companies. Using critical political economy as a theoretical framework, Gamu analyzes the Janus-faced phenomenon of CSR. He uses Peru as an illustrative case because it is one of the deadliest countries on earth for grassroots actors who oppose industrial mining operations. Violence in the Shadows reveals how the global mining industry's engagement with CSR discourses, institutions, and practices constitutes a strategic attempt to shape and manage a variety of social movements and the regulatory and operational threats they pose. Contrary to the seemingly benevolent corporate portrayals of their activities, CSR programming initiatives within this industry have palpably violent shadows at the local level, where companies have routinely used them to execute crafty modes of divide-and-rule and, when necessary, grease the wheels of state repression.

Jonathan Kishen Gamu is an Assistant Professor of International Politics at the University of Sheffield, England. His research examines the intersections of corporate power, industrial scale resource extraction, and the political economy and ecology of violence.