Challenging the ‘absent state’: Neoliberal extractivist governance and state effects in the northwest Peruvian Amazon

Natural resource extraction has been the base of Peruvian economic growth, notably since the neoliberalization of the economy in recent decades. Academic and media accounts portray Peru as an absent state – one of weak institutions to exert environmental control and guarantee citizens' rights – particularly in remote resource extraction areas. This article scrutinizes this idea of absence in the context of neoliberal extractivist governance, via the case of a mining conflict surrounding the creation of the Ichigkat Muja National Park (PNIM) in the Cordillera del Cóndor, in the northwest Peruvian Amazon. We argue that the state is not absent: it is the outcome of contested and re-negotiated relations, institutions, and ideologies. We posit that the goal of guaranteeing private investment shapes state agents' attitudes and interventions to address conflicts. Based on key informant interviews and the review of official social conflict reports, we examine two roles of the state: as a protector of rights and a provider of basic services. We find that, in this case, the regional government's recognition of citizens' rights appears ambiguous, and in general, the state's role as a provider of basic services is deployed to mitigate conflicts that affect significant extractive projects or involve intense social protest. Thus, the neoliberal project of the Peruvian state is mediated in complex relations, constituting a particular and evolving form of neo-extractivism, where social investment is functional to guarantee mining.     

Youthful Creativity in Regional Australia: Panacea for Unemployment and Out‐Migration?

This paper addresses the theme of youth out‐migration from rural Australia, in the context of recent policy discussions about creativity and its role in regional development. Ethnographic fieldwork in one rural location – the New South Wales Far North Coast – is drawn upon to highlight how creative industries are being cast as a potential way of promoting cultural activities and jobs for young people, and in turn, how they might be imagined as a means to mitigate youth out‐migration. Yet, creative industries have contradictory employment and social outcomes. Creative industries are likely to generate higher rates of youth participation in economic activities than public data reveal. However, strategies for future job growth should also consider the limitations and instabilities of creative industry employment. Second, and more broadly, the paper discusses those socio‐cultural dimensions of nascent creative industries that may have a more substantial impact when conceived as part of strategies to stem youth exodus from rural areas. Creative activities may contribute to rural development in indirect ways, especially if linked to policy goals of increased tolerance of youth activities, better provision of cultural services, and improved well‐being for young people. While formal job‐creation may be limited, creative industries could mitigate some of the impacts of youth migration to cities by enriching regional social life and mediating perceptions of the advantages and drawbacks of rural versus urban life. This kind of policy imagination requires a shift in attitudes towards young people and a more genuine commitment to encourage young people to feel that they belong in non‐metropolitan areas.     

Putting the “art” back into arts policy making: how arts policy has been “captured” by the economists and the marketers

Abstract: This paper explores the current discourse about arts policy and funding and its placement within an economic paradigm. The models of “cultural industry” and “creative industry” are explored and how they affect arts funding discourse. Similarly the impact of the introduction of the language of industry and business to the arts sector is considered. If bottom-line arguments are used by funders, governments and critics to argue the merits or otherwise of arts activity, how does this affect arts practice? In recent times arts funding agencies have been restructured to reflect a market-driven agenda rather than an arts-driven agenda. The impact of all these issues is considered in the context of Australian arts' models in particular, but with reference to examples in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The paper concludes with suggestions for a reassertion of core cultural values in future discourse.