Aspiring in precarious spaces

“But who would like to live there, along the river?” the engineer asked several times.

I worked with the engineer for my fieldwork, but he found it difficult to understand what a human geographer (or more broadly, anything related with social sciences) would find out from working with the riverine communities close to the city. I have been told many times - it is dangerous in that area, especially as a woman.

“The models tell me what might happen, but what does understanding them give us?” I found myself in difficult conversations with him, and most of the time, I remember being conflicted – which stories speak louder in navigating this textured political landscape of aspirations.

What he did not know was that most of the community members in Sachachorro and San Francisco, Bajo Belén would keep a fight to stay in their area. They fought when the government proposed a relocation area close to a national reserve almost 1.5 hours away from the river. The riverine community lives along Itaya River and is situated close to a big market and Iquitos City. Their houses are either floating or elevated on stilts like most of the riverine communities along the Amazon River, but unlike how the city has developed into a sprawling urban area. The city’s idea of development is one that is cemented, gridded, and controllable. However, in an area such as the Amazon where the river is the central source of life, development might take and demand more flexible ways of existing and aspiring.

Their day-to-day is a source of contention. Their day-to-day aspirations are forces of resistance to notions of development that paint their lives as precarious and careless. While it is true that their day-to-day looks and feels precarious, the lingering question for the community members is why their aspirations are not of the same value as others.

“We are basically forgotten here,” the community leader told our team. Many other members also said and felt the same. “But we like living here, we were born here. We like living close to the river, it gives us peace. I have tried living in the city, but I don’t like it there. It’s chaotic,” he continued. The river dances, and they must dance well with it. For six months, the river is dry, and they can walk around in some areas. For the next six months, the river grows, and they need peque-peques or llevo-llevos (small boats that can carry at most 6 people) to go around. It is this dance that urges the government to take them out of the area.

But while the river keeps changing its rhythms, they aspire to keep dancing with it. If we listened to possibilities and aspirations for existence otherwise, who would not want to live close to the river?