Introduction: Human Rights Trade-offs in Times of Economic Growth: A Tale from Peru

Abstract

The introduction describes the book’s aim to provide a multidisciplinary account of the community of La Oroya’s human rights trade-off, in which residents refrain from defending their health in order to preserve job stability at the local smelter, the main source of toxic pollution in town. The underlying assumption is that economic dependency on smelting activities has historically trapped inhabitants of La Oroya into a “context of systemic lack of freedom.” This socio-historical and politico-economic shaped context increases people’s vulnerabilities and decreases their ability to choose. This “local” trade-off is deeply interconnected with a “national” trade-off resulting from the promotion of natural resource extraction as a path to secure economic growth for the entire country at the expense of some groups.