Abstract: A new cycle of colonial expansion for the massive extraction of common goods is currently restructuring the relationship between humanity and nature, and thus the relationship between market, autonomous societies and State as well as the relations between global North and South and gender relations. This reality issues a complicated challenge to social movements seeking transformation. At the same time, it opens the perspective on a more radical change, motivated in the first place by the agency of the resisting subjects, like women’s and feminist movements who have a crucial role in the care and defense of the territories facing extractivism, and because it turns visible the crossroads of patriarchal, colonial and anthropocentric domination that are inherent to capitalism. I propose that the questions that are being asked by the organized peoples and women facing extractivism in the context of the expansion of mining in Peru contribute to the debate for more integral alternatives and paths towards change: Is this development going to ensure my good living, for my people and the generations to come? Will it, moreover, ensure a life in dignity and with more autonomy for women, in spite of the fact that the model reinforces the patriarchal character of gender relations?

This media entry was a contribution to the special session "Beyond development and resource extractivism: Feminist perpectives" at the 4th International Degrowth Conference in Leipzig in 2014.