Dynamics of accumulation due to dispossession surrounding mining exploitation in the Páramo de Santurbán, department of Santander (Colombia)

Abstract

This paper examines the relevance of David Harvey's thesis in relation to the processes of accumulation by dispossession, taking as a reference the conflict over mining exploitation in the paramo of Santurbán, Colombia. To attend this, it develops a qualitative approach, with a hermeneutic perspective taking discourse analysis as the axis from a macro level, where the reinforcement of neoliberalism discourse in the first decade of the 21st century is presented as a factor for mining development, until a subjective and intersubjective level where the processes of reconfiguration of the territory are observed through mechanisms of nonviolent coercion by means of which the dispossession is produced in the region. The main result of the investigation is the articulated presentation that shows how the dynamics of accumulation by dispossession work from a macro level of the economy, because of the regressive implications that institutional mediations established for the space-time readjustments of capital, until a micro level of the territory in which the space insertion occurs on a scale of expanded reproduction of capital.