Road Blockades During the Pandemic: Indigenous Citizenship and New Territoriality
(2026) Area — Vol. 58, n° 1 (2026)
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- Authors
Ioris, Antonio 
- Abstract
- In the Peruvian Amazon, the blocking of land and river routes has become an increasingly common strategy among Indigenous groups to exercise active citizenship. Originally a means to express opposition to government decisions-particularly those concerning land tenure, territorial governance and property rights-this form of collective political expression has long shaped Indigenous histories across the Americas throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Road blockades in Peru have a long and complex trajectory; through them, Amazonian communities have redefined their position vis-à-vis the state, shifting from marginalisation and invisibility to recognition as legitimate political actors. Despite their significance, the spatial dimensions of these protests-especially in relation to infrastructure as both the site and object of contention-remain understudied in social science research. In 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Indigenous communities in Peru deployed road blockades for an unprecedented purpose: as a strategy of health self-defence, grounded in political and economic self-organisation. This response echoed long-standing demands and exposed deep-rooted structural inequalities. The adoption of this protest tactic during the pandemic raises two central questions: First, what socio-political and cultural factors shaped this collective action? Second, what consequences did it have within the triangular relationship between emergent spatial practices, modes of collective action and broader political disputes?
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Citations
Romio, S., Ioris, A., & Piccoli, E. (2026). Road Blockades During the Pandemic: Indigenous Citizenship and New Territoriality. Area, 58(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/area.70106 (Original work published 2026)