Objective/Context:

With a modernizing discourse and business partners, former Peruvian president Alan García led the sale of indigenous Amazonian lands to oil companies. The Awajun and Wampis peoples responded, alongside national and international allies, by demanding the application of ILO Convention 169 through various mobilizations known as “el Baguazo” (2007-2009). This study analyzes, from a deliberative perspective, how the visibility of the arguments and cultural representations of indigenous peoples influenced their self-representation in the public sphere.

Methodology:

Based on the review of journalistic sources, government reports, statements from national and international organizations, and literature on social conflict and indigenous peoples, the chronology and discourses of the conflict were reconstructed.

Conclusions:

The mobilized indigenous communities self-represented, expressing their demands and cultural identities (cosmogonies, notions of territory, and development), opposing the sale of their lands. In this way, public spaces emerged, breaking into the national imagination, where sectors of the Peruvian citizenship recognized them for the first time. A network of allies reproduced and supported the indigenous arguments, lending them credibility to those who were unfamiliar with them. However, it was a partial advance as it remained limited to the cultural sphere without translating into the political realm, which is evident in the obtained Law of Prior Consultation (2011), which disregarded their sovereignty.

Originality:

While the literature on socio-environmental conflicts focuses on actors and strategies, this article emphasizes the arguments of indigenous peoples, their deliberation, dissemination, and power of persuasion in the face of the rest of the Peruvian citizenry.