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This paper analyzes changes in community governance in the context of negotiations with a mining company. We focus on three issues: the role played by the community government on the regulation of community resources and territory, the diverse and complex interests that emerge in the presence of mining activity; and, the community as a political institution confronting external pressures over its land. We develop a study case focusing on the negotiation process between the Michiquillay peasant community and Anglo American Mining Company in Cajamarca, Peru. This information was obtained doing fieldwork in the community in 2009. In our analysis we observe that changes on community resources regulation, its uses and valorization, as well as changes on the balance of power between economic and political actors, have created a greater level of complexity in the community, creating new levels of community decision and spaces for disputing resources' control. At the same time, new inter communal conflicts emerge and fragmentation of community lands increases. In this context the community as an institution plays a central role in the negotiation process over access productive resource and the distribution of financial capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]