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Abstract:
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"The 'Miracle of San Martín' in the Peruvian Amazon is a metaphor that is well known nationally and internationally, for the recovery of state order in a region that has been convulsed by terrorism and drug trafficking. Specifically, I focus on the process of 'alternative development' that symbolizes the eradication of coca produced for drug trafficking through the implementation of cocoa value chains, and - particularly - organic and fair trade chains.
In these 'alternative' value chains, a strong connection of the local actors with the territory is supposed. This would be particularly true for the indigenous communities of kichwa-lamistas in the area that would use common land for common benefits in a traditionally cohesive way. In this narrative, cocoa is seen as an alternative and organic common good that can be inserted into different (niche) markets, at a fair price for the producers. This is considered a friendly discourse with the liberal logic for making the territory look like a productive, efficient and at the same time sustainable asset, based on the communities' own 'sense of place' (Cresswell, 2004) and connectedness to their territory. Cocoa's materiality permits production in sustainable agroforestry systems in contrast to its extractive monoculture production as a commodity in conventional production chains. The integrated production system and the 'ethical' and organic certification could give it a status as a 'hybridized social common' (Basu, Jongerden, & Ruivenkamp, 2017), where the physical attributes of the crop and the expert knowledge to produce it in a global production system, cannot be separated.
Based on visits and field work in the area since 2002 in which I have applied different participatory research methods, as well as a Social Network Analysis in order to test the idea of social cohesion and density of g-local networks, I argue that the construction of organic and fair trade cocoa chains, perceived as relatively successful, has been possible due to the confluence of two processes, one domestic-regional and a global one that found a 'fertile ground' in some districts of the region, as Chazuta, while in others it did not.
In this sense, organic and fairtrade cocoa has been promoted as a „common“ that permits paying a fair price to a collective of producers and at the same time, prevent further deforestation and extension of the agricultural border, if it is produced in integrated systems. The proposed strategies made by a global network that came into existence in this territory, were assumed by most of the local actors of Chazuta, with few 'frictions' (Lowenhaupt Tsing, 2005)."
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