User:OttaviaL/gap analysis

Gap analysis

 * What is the title of the article in which you identified a gap. If no article exists at all, what should the title be?

Elizabeth Lino Cornejo


 * Document the gap you found, describe how you identified it, and analyze its impact on knowledge.

Elizabeth Lino Cornejo is an important artist, anthropologist and activist in Peru. I came across her work in another class about extractive industries and was shocked to find no information about her on Wikipedia despite two Vice articles about her work and ample amount of media attention given to her cause, the devastating effects of the Raul Rojas mine in Cerro de Pasco, Peru. Since 2009 Elizabeth has been working on a multimedia performance project, “The Last Queen of Cerro de Pasco” or “La Ultima Reina”. Her work is important because she is taking on the mining industry, demanding they and the government of Peru are held accountable for the dangerous consequences of mineral extraction. La Ultima Reina intervenes on this conflict by calling attention to the devastation of the mine and the colonization of the town by the mining company through the image of a pageant queen, a figure that can be viewed as the ultimate commercialized, industrialized object. Thus her work is not just about the mine, but the bodies of the people of Cerro de Pasco that are colonized and destroyed as their land becomes more and more polluted. Furthermore, by bringing in gender through her performance we can examine how the sexist hierarchies of capitalism are mirrored in how the mining industry claims and exploits the earth. To exclude Elizabeth Lino Cornejo from Wikipedia is not only devaluing her contribution to the field of multidisciplinary art, but also ignoring the terror of the mining industry on the people it affects the most.

For a more complete Wikipedia article about this artist it would be necessary to have an editor who can speak Spanish. Elizabeth does not publish any of her work in English and has perhaps been over-looked by major English-language news sources for this reason. Other (English-speaking) artists and journalists who have covered this area have been featured and interviewed for major news publications although none of them have a close relationship to the town like Elizabeth does.


 * Propose a paragraph of new or substantially edited content based on reliable sources. (If you are editing existing content, post the current version along with your edited version, and clearly mark which is which.)

La Ultima Reyna

“La Ultima Reina” is a multimedia art piece that includes performance, video, photography and visual art. The mission of the project is to bring visibility to the effects of the Raul Rojas mine in Cerro de Pasco as well as campaign to declare the city a cultural heritage site. The bulk of the project is an on-going performance art piece documented through video where Lino dresses as a pageant queen, Miss Cerro de Pasco, with a tiara and scepter and walks around the city and the mine, smiling, waving and talking about the cultural heritage of the city. She describes the Queen she plays as more than just a character, but an alter-ego, saying, “On one hand, it wears me out, and I’d like to stop doing it. But on the other hand, I have to keep doing it.”   Elizabeth grew up in Cerro de Pasco, at a mining camp on the edge of the pit that has since been swallowed up by the mine, and her father and grandfather both worked in the mine. Cornejo says, “The situation in Cerro de Pasco doesn’t make me sad. It makes me angry.”  She documents the entire project on her blog.

Cerro de Pasco is a city in central Peru, located at the top of the Andean Mountains. It is the capitol of Pasco Region and has been an important mining center for silver, lead and zinc since the 17th century. The city has slowly been demolished since opencast mining began in 1956 and what is left now surrounds a giant pit that is two kilometer across and 350 meters deep. The inhabitants, especially children, suffer some of the world lead poisoning in the world with more than three-quarters of children testing with blood lead levels exceeding the acceptable limit set by the World Health Organization. In 2008 the Peruvian legislature passed Law 29293 which orders the relocation of Cerro de Pasco, however it does not stipulate who must pay for it and no progress has been made to begin the project.


 * List the reliable sources that could be used to improve this gap. (You can use the Cite tool from the editing toolbar above to input and format your sources.)


 * 1) Boryga, Andrew. "A Mine Erodes an Andean City." Lens A Mine Erodes an Andean City Comments. The New York Times, 13 Jan. 2015. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. < http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/13/a-mine-erodes-an-andean-city/?_r=0 >.
 * 2) Michel, Arthur Holland. "The City That Mining Ate." Motherboard:VICE. Vice Media, 10 Oct. 2014. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. < http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-city-that-metal-ate >.
 * 3) Cornejo, Elizabeth Lino. La Ultima Reyna. 18 Feb. 2016. < https://laultimareina.wordpress.com/ >.
 * 4) Michel, Arthur Holland. "A Giant Hole Is Swallowing a Town in Peru | VICE | United States." VICE. Vice Media, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. .
 * 5) "If a City's the Pits." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 31 Jan. 2009. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. .
 * 6) "Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention." CDC.gov. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 18-19 Sept. 2007. Web. 17 Feb. 2016. < http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/acclpp/meetings/minutes/2007septminutes.pdf >.
 * 7) Tony, Dajer. "High in the Andes, A Mine Eats a 400-Year-Old City." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, 2 Dec. 2015. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. < http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/151202-Cerro-de-Pasco-Peru-Volcan-mine-eats-city-environment/?sf16282137=1 >.