The Emergence of the "Kukama Mothers" in the Defense of Their Territories Under Oil Pollution (2014-2022)

There is growing interest in the organization of indigenous women against pollution from extractive activities, but local studies on them are still scarce. The proposal seeks to describe how women identify as "kukamas mothers" configured organizations in four indigenous communities that are part of the Federation of United Cocama Peoples of Marañón, during the 2014 and 2022 oil spills in the lower basin of the Marañón River in the North Peruvian Amazon. The spills caused by the ruptures of the North Peruvian Oil Pipeline contaminated water sources and territories, and people's bodies. They also affected women's roles, positions, and care work. The analysis is conducted based on concepts of subjectivity and care, addressed by gender studies and Amazonian anthropology, to explain the women's motivations and strategies to strengthen their liderships and to organize themselves to defend their territories, including the "underwater space", and to achieve benefits for their families and communities.

The ethnographic study involved fieldwork in the Cuninico community and Nauta and Iquitos cities, conducting interviews, and reviewing state and academic documents. This research shows how Kukama women organized themselves by appealing to their political motherhood and ethnicity (Kukama, native or Indigenous mothers) in a context of questioning the identity claim of the Kukama people. That allowed them to legitimize their participation in communal and state settings and raise problems and proposals based on expanded notions of care and territory that challenge those contained in state remediation policies.