Content area
In recent decades, rural areas have undergone accelerated social changes. Within these changes, the dynamics of politics also present new nuances in the context of citizen participation, aiming to build horizontality, reinforcing representativity, and the democratic system. Citizen participation in rural areas, throughout these decades, shows varied results. However, studies have focused on non-successful participatory experiences and less on understanding participation per se. Thus, there is a need to comprehend the dynamics of citizen participation that unfolds in everyday life associated with aspects of local culture. The research is based on an ethnographic study design that, being qualitative, uses fieldwork combining three basic types of qualitative techniques: participant observation, interviews, and conversations. Research in Haquira reveals that citizen participation, shaped by extractive projects, is affected by sociocultural dynamics and transformations driven by mining. Ethnicity emerges as a key factor, and the unique implementation of participation highlights the need for contextual analysis. A rigorous ethnographic approach is presented as essential, revealing common challenges of competition for resources and imbalances. The local context, influenced by economic interests, emphasizes the pragmatic importance of participation for increasing municipal income through the mining canon. This study will allow a deeper understanding at a specific level of political power in everyday life and will also help to understand how social relations develop within the emerging spaces of civil society interaction.