- Critical Theory, Political Geography, Political Ecology, Cultural Ecology, Ritual Theory, Indigeneity, and 19 moreLatin America, Who Has the Power to Define Indigeneity?, Legal Anthropology, Indigenous Politics, Political Economy, Water Conflicts, Chile, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Multiculturalism, Puna de Atacama, Contemporary Archaeology, Neoliberalism, Andean studies: colonial society, Modern Ruins, Archaeology of the Contemporary Past, Object Oriented Ontology, Critical Physical Geography, Climate Change, and Geographyedit
- My research interests are situated at the intersection of political geography and political ecology. I am interested ... moreMy research interests are situated at the intersection of political geography and political ecology. I am interested in studying how nature is discursively and materially bound up in and shape the production of identities, state power, political economy, cultural politics, and practices of the everyday. In the projects I currently lead, I particularly examine the complex relation of different, but interrelated, phenomena: (1) The commodification of nature through water markets in the Atacama Desert's highland; (2) the performativity of local environmental knowledge; (3) problems of indigeneity; (4) the process of state formation; (5) the role of extractive industries, and (6) the ecological changes of high altitude peatlands. I am also interested in the archaeology of the recent past for understanding the reproduction of contemporary state sovereignty through the material culture of everyday life.edit
The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Development seeks to engage with comprehensive, contemporary and critical theoretical debates on Latin American development. The volume draws on contributions from across the humanities and social... more
The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Development seeks to engage with comprehensive, contemporary and critical theoretical debates on Latin American development. The volume draws on contributions from across the humanities and social sciences and, unlike earlier volumes of this kind, explicitly highlights the disruptions to the field being brought by a range of anti-capitalist, decolonial, feminist, and ontological intellectual contributions. The chapters consider in depth the harms and suffering caused by various oppressive forces, as well as the creative and often revolutionary ways in which ordinary Latin Americans resist, fight back, and work to construct development defined broadly as the struggle for a better and more dignified life. The book covers many key themes including development policy and practice, neoliberalism and its aftermath, the role played by social movements in cities and rural areas, the politics of water, oil and other environmental resources, indigenous and Afro-descendant rights and the struggles for gender equality. With contributions from authors working in Latin America, the US and Canada, Europe, and New Zealand at a range of universities and other organizations, the handbook is an invaluable resource for students and lecturers in development studies, Latin American studies, cultural studies, human geography, anthropology, sociology, political science and economics, as well as activists and development practitioners.
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La ecología política rompe el mito de la naturaleza como fenómeno prepolítico, destacando las narrativas hegemónicas que la producen discursiva y materialmente. Este enfoque cuestiona la forma de generar conocimiento sobre la naturaleza e... more
La ecología política rompe el mito de la naturaleza como fenómeno prepolítico, destacando las narrativas hegemónicas que la producen discursiva y materialmente. Este enfoque cuestiona la forma de generar conocimiento sobre la naturaleza e interroga a los ganadores y perdedores en las relaciones entre ser humano y medio ambiente.
El libro introduce los principales temas de atención de la ecología política como son el poder, la propiedad, la naturaleza y el conocimiento, y los utiliza como lentes para mirar la realidad chilena. Cada tema se presenta a través de dos casos de estudio relativos a agua, bosque, salmonicultura, y conflictos como el caso CELCO y pewenche.
El libro, recoge investigaciones originales de académicos e investigadores nacionales e internacionales, con el propósito de entregar información a lectores interesados en analizar temas relacionados con sociedad y medio ambiente. También se ofrece como complemento para espacios académicos que quieran profundizar en los aspectos conceptuales y teóricos de la ecología política actual.
El libro constituye una contribución importante a las ciencias sociales para construir una agenda de investigación que ponga en diálogo los proyecto académicos con la justicia ambiental.
El libro introduce los principales temas de atención de la ecología política como son el poder, la propiedad, la naturaleza y el conocimiento, y los utiliza como lentes para mirar la realidad chilena. Cada tema se presenta a través de dos casos de estudio relativos a agua, bosque, salmonicultura, y conflictos como el caso CELCO y pewenche.
El libro, recoge investigaciones originales de académicos e investigadores nacionales e internacionales, con el propósito de entregar información a lectores interesados en analizar temas relacionados con sociedad y medio ambiente. También se ofrece como complemento para espacios académicos que quieran profundizar en los aspectos conceptuales y teóricos de la ecología política actual.
El libro constituye una contribución importante a las ciencias sociales para construir una agenda de investigación que ponga en diálogo los proyecto académicos con la justicia ambiental.
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Extractivism has marked the history of Latin America whose operations are in rural territories inhabited mainly by indigenous populations. Mining has had a remarkable expansion in rural territories of the Andes. Critical studies of these... more
Extractivism has marked the history of Latin America whose operations are in rural territories inhabited mainly by indigenous populations. Mining has had a remarkable expansion in rural territories of the Andes. Critical studies of these processes have focused on the disruptive aspects and conflict between companies, local populations, and States. However, mining has also been intertwined with the territories based on contradictory relationships at different timescales. To examine this issue, we carried out a historical reconstruction of the productive practices of the Caspana community indigenous (northern Chile) and their different forms of connection with mining development. We combine diverse data sources and methodological approaches: oral histories obtained from ethnography, censuses, explorers' records, and academic literature. We identify different types of relationships over time, according to the different forms of indigenous participation in the extractive markets and the deployment and rearrangement of diverse economic strategies by the indigenous population.
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Studies on the agrarian question in Latin America have dealt with the role of capital in the area of agriculture and forestry while paying scant attention to its role in other areas, such as mining. Research on mining extractivism, for... more
Studies on the agrarian question in Latin America have dealt with the role of capital in the area of agriculture and forestry while paying scant attention to its role in other areas, such as mining. Research on mining extractivism, for its part, has privileged recent socio-environmental conflicts without delving into the configurations of social classes and labor relations as it relates to agriculture. This article integrates these topics, analyzing the connections between copper extractivism, the commodification of the yareta plant, and indigenous peasant labor. We studied the medium-upper basin of the Loa River, in northern Chile, where one of the most important copper mines in the world (Chuquicamata) has been operating since 1915. Using ethnography and bibliographic analysis, we provide an account of how the expansion of extractivism requires a mixture of properly capitalist labor relations mixed with customary Andean practices. The latter are subsumed by capital and have played a key structural role during certain periods.
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Imaginaries serve as the foundational framework shaping representations and influencing societal perspectives, subsequently guiding specific practices. Within the realm of geographical imaginaries, this article adopted a geohistorical... more
Imaginaries serve as the foundational framework shaping representations and influencing societal perspectives, subsequently guiding specific practices. Within the realm of geographical imaginaries, this article adopted a geohistorical perspective, using periodicals, secondary sources, and contemporary digital media to shed light on the geography of the highlands of northern Chile. Our objective was to emphasize the representations that have discouraged the occupation of these mountainous regions. Our findings revealed the emergence of a geographic imaginary that attributes desert-like qualities to the entire northern region of Chile, extending beyond the “unpopulated area of Atacama”. This misleading characterization fails to distinguish desert areas from the topographic variations existing between the Andes and the Pacific coast. These representations, which have translated into depopulation practices, have stigmatized the highland areas as synonymous with desolation and inhospitality, seemingly unsuitable for daily life, social production, and reproduction potential. Consequently, both spaces and individuals have been objectified for development, perpetuating the capitalist system as the dominant mode of production.
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Until the mid-1980s, the Atacameño indigenous people were broadly caricatured as Chilean peasants or herders. In the 1980s, they began a process of resurgence as indigenous in order to attain legal recognition. Structural approaches to... more
Until the mid-1980s, the Atacameño indigenous people were broadly caricatured as Chilean peasants or herders. In the 1980s, they began a process of resurgence as indigenous in order to attain legal recognition. Structural approaches to indigeneity have explored this phenomenon by seeing Atacameños as passive subjects whose identity has been imposed, fixed, or mediated by the law and by external actors (e.g. bureaucrats, intellectuals, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)). Problematizing these viewpoints, I argue here that Atacameños, rather than adopting indigeneity based on predetermined structural factors or instrumental motivations, are active agents in their resurgence and the articulation of their identity against cultural assimilation and extractive industries. Based largely on oral evidence collected from indigenous leaders and other key actors, I show that the dispossession and threats that the neoliberal Chilean Water Code brought to the Atacameños served as critical historical sediment for the resurgence and articulation of their indigeneity. The results problematize the hegemonic perspective that presents authenticity as a requisite for indigeneity and indigenous people as colonial power victims. Instead, Atacameños are situated agents who revived their identity within a broader process in order to challenge dominant structures concerning access to resources, principally water.
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In this intervention, we explore the impacts of geopolitical bifurcation on the field of political ecology, specifically the divide between political ecology from the Global North and political ecology from the Global South. We argue that... more
In this intervention, we explore the impacts of geopolitical bifurcation on the field of political ecology, specifically the divide between political ecology from the Global North and political ecology from the Global South. We argue that this divide perpetuates categorical essentialisms, flattens authors’ standpoints, and reproduces inequities in how scholarship is valued and circulated based on where it is written from. These issues are not limited to political ecology alone but can be relevant to environmental geography as well. Through our analysis of the perpetuation of aporia in political ecology, we challenge the normalcy of this North/South differentiation and advocate for recognizing the agency and capacity of political ecology practitioners, regardless of their geographic location, language, or nationality, to shape the field. Drawing from our experiences as Latin Americanist political ecologists, we argue that trans hemispheric and polylingual projects that challenge power dynamics, create inclusive research processes, and recognize colonial legacies are crucial for more equitable and just approaches to addressing environmental and social justice issues. Furthermore, we examine the coloniality of institutions and technologies that move environmental knowledge as a commodity, such as uni- versities, indexed journals, publishing houses, and research funding criteria.
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El norte de Chile, y particularmente el área de Precordillera y Altiplano, presenta unas condiciones climáticas caracterizadas por la aridez, pero no exentas de eventos de precipitaciones intensas y de temperaturas muy frías. En esta área... more
El norte de Chile, y particularmente el área de Precordillera y Altiplano, presenta unas condiciones climáticas caracterizadas por la aridez, pero no exentas de eventos de precipitaciones intensas y de temperaturas muy frías. En esta área se asientan comunidades aimaras desde tiempos precolombinos que han prosperado y desarrollado actividades agropastoriles pese a estas condiciones poco favorables basándose en la observación de indicadores naturales. A partir de datos de precipitación y temperaturas y de entrevistas semiestructuradas, se identificaron aquellos indicadores y cuál era el comportamiento climático/meteorológico que vaticinaban, en el caso de las poblaciones de Putre (Precordillera) y Caquena (Altiplano). Así, se identificó que estos indicadores naturales permiten adelantar con una determinada confianza el carácter húmedo o seco, o frío o cálido de una estación venidera, pero presenta determinadas limitaciones a la hora de predecir la ocurrencia de eventos extremos de carácter local. En ese sentido, este trabajo supone un buen avance a la hora de poner de relevancia el conocimiento tradicional de las comunidades andinas, que aparece como una muestra más de su valor patrimonial.
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In the Andes, multiple human and climatic factors threaten the conservation of bofedales, a type of high altitude peat forming wetland widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical Andes. In northern Chile, climate change and water... more
In the Andes, multiple human and climatic factors threaten the conservation of bofedales, a type of high altitude peat forming wetland widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical Andes. In northern Chile, climate change and water extraction for industrial activities are among the most significant threats to these relevant socio- hydrological systems hosting indigenous pastoral communities. In this study, we present an integrated anal- ysis of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) anomalies, drought severity and water rights granted to industry to provide insight on the conservation status of bofedales, historical drivers of their transformation, and current threats. Using Landsat satellite imagery from 1986 to 2018, we identify spatio-temporal NDVI changes of 442 bofedales in one of the leading copper producing regions of the world. The NDVI time series analysis over 32 growing seasons was used to detect extreme anomalies, i.e. values outside the 95 % of the reference frequency distribution, indicating periods of extreme changes in the productivity of these high Andes wetlands. To evaluate the relationship between bofedales NDVI extreme periods to drought and continued water extraction activities, we combine a climate-based multi-temporal-scale drought index (SPEI) with the geospatial latitudinal distri- bution of water rights granted for extractive industries in the study area. Over the time period of analysis, the total amount of granted water rights increased 465 % from 1,201 l/s recorded before 1985 to 5,584 l/s in 2018. In the areas where the highest amount of water rights are concentrated, i.e. between 21.3◦S and 22.1◦S, “green” bofedales (NDVI>=0.23) are practically absent. NDVI of the austral summer (JFM) was highly correlated with the severity of drought occurring during the three months of the growing season peak. While our findings show bofedal productivity is mostly influenced by precipitation and temperature of the wet season (JFM) during the study period, results also raise questions regarding possible bofedal loss occurring over the previous 80 years prior to the satellite record, wherein water extraction activities have significantly increased according to official records.
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Since ancient times Andean societies have formed an intimate relationship with volcanoes, the beginnings of which can be traced right back to the initial peopling of the region. By studying rocks used for stone tools and other everyday... more
Since ancient times Andean societies have formed an intimate relationship with volcanoes, the beginnings of which can be traced right back to the initial peopling of the region. By studying rocks used for stone tools and other everyday artifacts, we explore the volcanic landscapes of early hunter-gatherer groups (11,500–9,500 cal BP) of the highlands of the Atacama Desert (22–24°S/67–68°W). Petrological classification of the lithic assemblages of three Early Holocene archaeological sites showed the procurement of a great diversity of volcanic and subvolcanic rocks, including pumice, granitic rocks, micro-diorites, a large variety of tuffs and andesites, dacites, cherts, basalts, obsidians, among others. Field surveys enabled us to detect many of their sources related to volcanic features such as craters, maars, caldera-domes, lava flows, probable hydrothermal deposits, and ignimbrites. In these places, we also document large quarry-workshops and campsites from different periods, indicating intense and repeated human occupation over time. By comparing the artifacts with geological samples collected in the field, it was possible to assign the source of origin of a large part of the archaeological assemblages. Our data suggest that the volcanic features of the Atacama highlands were integrated into the mobility and interaction networks of ancient hunter-gatherer groups at an early date.
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Marine sacrificial zones are planned areas dedicated to the toxic violence of carbo-chemical port development around the world. In the marine environment in Chile, repeated fisher led new social movements have been raised regarding the... more
Marine sacrificial zones are planned areas dedicated to the toxic violence of carbo-chemical port development around the world. In the marine environment in Chile, repeated fisher led new social movements have been raised regarding the need to create laws controlling marine pollution from combined coal power station/extraction complexes and realise participatory blue epistemic justice. A series of case studies from across Chile demonstrate the importance of integrating fisher observations of contamination. Interviews and participatory GIS shows how fisher communities LEK
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Arica is a coastal city located in northern Chile, in the Atacama Desert. The behavior of surface temperatures in the city between 1985 and 2019 was studied using Landsat satellite images, leading to the identification of surface urban... more
Arica is a coastal city located in northern Chile, in the Atacama Desert. The behavior of surface temperatures in the city between 1985 and 2019 was studied using Landsat satellite images, leading to the identification of surface urban heat islands (SUHI), surface urban cold islands (SUCI), and average temperature zones. The higher intensities of the SUHI reach values of almost 45 °C and the SUCI lower values are below 13 °C. From the socioeconomic characterisation of the population based on indicators retrieved from the 2012 and 2017 population censuses, we identified that during the study period there was a lower presence of SUHI, but these were linked to spaces of lower socioeconomic level and, for the most part, would form new urban spaces within the city. On the other hand, SUCI had a greater spatial presence in the study area and in the urban morphology, being found mostly in areas of high socioeconomic level and in consolidated spaces with few possibilities of generating new ...
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Both supporters and critics of the Chilean water model have described it as a textbook example of deregulation and the free-market model for water management. In this article, we challenge this characterization and argue that the model... more
Both supporters and critics of the Chilean water model have described it as a textbook example of deregulation and the free-market model for water management. In this article, we challenge this characterization and argue that the model has relied on long-term and highly centralized State decisions that have installed and reproduced historical power asymmetries. Based on archival research and historical records of water rights assignments and water-related legal instruments, we develop a comprehensive historical analysis of how water rights have been distributed over the last 100 years in one of the country's most paradigmatic cases: the Antofagasta Region. Starting seven decades before the military regime imposed the 1981 Water Code, our analysis reveals that water in this geographical area has historically been distributed through distinct State-driven strategies rather than market instruments, favoring mining companies. We conclude that the Chilean water model, rather than being a market-driven approach to water management, actually relies on strong regulations, and that the Water Code merely crystallizes centralized historical decisions regarding water distribution that support an extractivist development model.
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Across the Andes, a critical challenge for mountain socioecological systems is securing water for future generations. Pastoral communities are especially vulnerable because their livelihood practices are often unseen or perceived as a... more
Across the Andes, a critical challenge for mountain socioecological systems is securing water for future generations. Pastoral communities are especially vulnerable because their livelihood practices are often unseen or perceived as a threat to natural resource conservation. In addition to the challenges of climate change, socioeconomic and political processes complicate the drivers of pasture degradation and sustainable water management. Often overlooked systems in assessments of Andean water towers are bofedales (high-altitude peat wetlands), which are critical to supporting mountain pastoral livelihoods. While ''natural'' azonal mountain peatland and humid meadow development occurs across the Andes, we posit that bofedales are sociohydrological systems created through pastoral management practices over generations. Drawing on the results of applied research on bofedales across the Andes and a literature review of published papers, we present a conceptual reframing of bofedal typologies and change analysis, which prioritizes the role of pastoralists in interdisciplinary research and comparative assessments of land-use and land-cover change in Andean highland regions. We identified key socioecological challenges to sustainable bofedal management, related to herder decisionmaking and articulated within broader socioeconomic processes. Reframing bofedales as sociohydrological constructs permits the identification of actionable knowledge and the support of water conservation practices applied by pastoralists across Andean water tower regions. If Andean pastoralists are recognized as stewards of sociohydrological systems that are critical to water towers, rather than perceived as threats to natural resources, bofedal conservation planning may be prioritized and locally supported.
Research Interests: Pastoralism (Social Anthropology), Cultural Landscapes, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Peatland Ecology, Resilience (Sustainability), and 8 moreMountain communities, Cultural Ecology, Andes, Indigenous ecological knowledges and practices, Natural Resource Ecology - Mountain Areas, High Mountain Research, Pastoralism, and Peatlands
Andean high-altitude wetlands are important ecosystems that serve a range of socialecological functions. In the Andes, bofedales, a specific type of peat-producing wetland, are essential for the sustainability of mountain ecosystems and... more
Andean high-altitude wetlands are important ecosystems that serve a range of socialecological functions. In the Andes, bofedales, a specific type of peat-producing wetland, are essential for the sustainability of mountain ecosystems and indigenous pastoralist communities. The Chucuyo bofedal in northern Chile is affected by climatic variability and water extraction for agricultural uses via the Lauca canal. Herders in the local community also actively manage this wetland according to their traditional ecological knowledge to ensure permanent fodder for their animals. In this article, we analyze the annual behavior of the Chucuyo bofedal after the wet season. Based on precipitation data, extracted water flows, vegetation vigor from satellite images, and an ethnographic approach, we determined that the bofedal's productivity was negatively correlated with the amount of precipitation and positively correlated with the surface area of the wetland. However, water extraction via the Lauca channel had no significant relationship with either surface area or vegetation vigor. We identify community practices and traditional ecological knowledge as key elements in the maintenance of these ecosystems. This situation is critical in the context of an aging population and the current pattern of migration out of the region to urban areas. The results provide substantial empirical evidence for future decision-making regarding the conservation of these ecosystems.
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La provincia de El Loa, habitada históricamente por población andina dedicada a actividades agrícolas, pastoriles y de intercambio, ha ocupado un lugar estratégico en la expansión del extractivismo cuprífero chileno y su inserción... more
La provincia de El Loa, habitada históricamente por población andina dedicada a actividades agrícolas, pastoriles y de intercambio, ha ocupado un lugar estratégico en la expansión del extractivismo cuprífero chileno y su inserción internacional. Ahí se emplaza Chuquicamata, la que fuera durante parte importante del siglo XX la mina de cobre más grande del mundo. Para avanzar en la comprensión de las transformaciones territoriales que produce esta actividad, efectuamos un análisis histórico-estructural de la agricultura de la provincia entre 1929/30 y 2006/07. Caracterizamos analíticamente las transformaciones agrarias de la zona relacionando su desenvolvimiento con la expansión de la gran minería cuprífera. Teóricamente, nos posicionamos desde el paradigma de la cuestión agraria, reproblematizado a partir de los estudios sobre el extractivismo. En términos metodológicos, usamos estadísticas descriptivas de censos agropecuarios para caracterizar la estructura agraria, y fuentes históricas y secundarias para comprender sus conexiones con la explotación cuprífera.
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La condición climática global y la incierta situación socio-política nacional han propiciado necesarios debates en torno a la relación entre economía política y naturaleza en Chile. En este artículo, hacemos una reflexión incorporando... more
La condición climática global y la incierta situación socio-política nacional han propiciado necesarios debates en torno a la relación entre economía política y naturaleza en Chile. En este artículo, hacemos una reflexión incorporando elementos teóricos y modelos empíricos chilenos para analizar brevemente el rol del conocimiento científico en el estudio interseccional de la naturaleza. La generación y aplicación de metodologías inclusivas reconoce que las relaciones de dominación por parte del capital y el patriarcado son parte del proceso de producción de la naturaleza. Una aproximación tradicionalmente excluyente e individualista impide el avance hacia alternativas de desarrollo que reconozcan o generen otros modelos basados en la defensa de la vida, humana y no-humana, en coexistencia estrecha con formas inertes.
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Since the mid-twentieth century, Latin American rural territories have undergone sig- nificant transformations. One of the leading causes is the expansion of large-scale operations that exploit natural resources for world market... more
Since the mid-twentieth century, Latin American rural territories have undergone sig- nificant transformations. One of the leading causes is the expansion of large-scale operations that exploit natural resources for world market exportation with low processing. In this paper, we study the changes in agricultural activities, livestock, and land use in the Calama oasis (the Atacama Desert, northern Chile) in relation to the growth of large-scale copper mining and other chained processes (urbanization and increased demand for water resources); based on a mixed methodology combining descriptive statistics, archival and bibliographic review, ethnography, and spatial analysis. We present the results through a historical reconstruction of the analyzed dimensions and their relationships, accounting for contradictory dynamics in time and space. We identify how mining and urban growth promote some agricultural and livestock activities under certain economic and political conditions, while in other contexts, these activities have been severely weakened, seeing increasing urbanization of rural land, rural-urban pluriactivity, and a growing deagrarianization.
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Bofedales are azonal peat-forming wetlands located in the tropical and subtropical Andes at high altitudes (approximately 3200-5000 m). Motivated by their socio-ecological importance, unique landscape qualities, and increasing... more
Bofedales are azonal peat-forming wetlands located in the tropical and subtropical Andes at high altitudes (approximately 3200-5000 m). Motivated by their socio-ecological importance, unique landscape qualities, and increasing vulnerability, scholars have developed a rich research agenda to better understand this ecosystem. We conducted an analysis of the various frameworks used to study bofedales through a systematic review of 119 key academic publications. We observed a range of bofedal naming terminologies, definitions, and descriptions of key threats that sometimes aligned with disciplinary, geographic, or linguistic distinctions between studies. Notably, though the majority of papers employed natural science methods, the social science and multidisciplinary studies were more likely to discuss the role of local communities in helping manage these ecosystems, though many researchers also highlighted the need for further study of these dynamics. This analysis, therefore, demonstrates the need to develop research modalities that are rooted in local contexts and which employ both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate and elucidate the complex human-environment dynamics that characterize these ecosystems. By documenting, we aim to support more robust research collaborations and to inform the development of research and conservation agendas that effectively support these landscapes and the myriad socio-ecological services they provide.
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In this article, we problematize conventional views regarding culture presented in the assessment report entitled Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. This report is a contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report... more
In this article, we problematize conventional views regarding culture presented in the assessment report entitled Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. This report is a contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We posit that when culture is seen as a stable category and imagined as a space composed of humans—and, more precisely, only certain humans—an epistemological, ontological, and ethical order is reproduced in which (a) nature is framed as a passive and apolitical “out there”, (b) knowledge based on this division is misleading and partial (e.g., social scientists study culture and natural scientists study nature), and (c) dominant humanist assumptions become common-sense explanations for inequalities. We conduct a critical discourse analysis of the IPCC report to better understand which assumptions produce the conceptualization of culture as a stable category. In our conclusion, we offer an example of a semiotic-meaning intervention of a section of the report to demonstrate the vitality of the concepts presented in this document. Subsequently, we discuss the consequences of omitting the vital traffic between the biological, social, and cultural realms from discussions on climate change to reexamine the production and reproduction of inequalities.
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What is “uncooperative” about the commodification of nature? This article argues that critical understandings of neoliberal environmental governance must contend with complex processes of identity formation and mobilization. Drawing on an... more
What is “uncooperative” about the commodification of nature? This article argues that critical understandings of neoliberal environmental governance must contend with complex processes of identity formation and mobilization. Drawing on an analysis of water rights formalization in Chile, widely seen as the most radical case of water commodification in the world, this article demonstrates how Indigenous identity works to subvert the processes and politics of commodifying water. A growing body of recent literature (mainly in the Andes) has emphasized the relationship between water control and Indigenous resurgence, stressing how indigeneity can disrupt neoliberalism. Following this approach, and through analyzing oral testimonies from Atacameño people, I highlight the Atacameños’ agency throughout the implementation of the Chilean water model in the Atacama Desert. By studying the Atacameños’ perceptions of the intimate relationship between water, power, and identity politics in their desert homeland, I conclude that the Chilean water model, rather than posing a threat to a genuine identity, has allowed for the articulation of a legitimate Indigenous positionality for the purpose of retaining a collective hydraulic property. The results provide a more comprehensive understanding of the contradictions of the Chilean case and the role of identity politics within the commodification of natural processes.
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Arica is a coastal city located in northern Chile, in the Atacama Desert. The behavior of surface temperatures in the city between 1985 and 2019 was studied using Landsat satellite images, leading to the identification of surface urban... more
Arica is a coastal city located in northern Chile, in the Atacama Desert. The behavior of surface temperatures in the city between 1985 and 2019 was studied using Landsat satellite images, leading to the identification of surface urban heat islands (SUHI), surface urban cold islands (SUCI), and average temperature zones. The higher intensities of the SUHI reach values of almost 45 ◦C and the SUCI lower values are below 13 ◦C. From the socioeconomic characterisation of the population based on indicators retrieved from the 2012 and 2017 population censuses, we identified that during the study period there was a lower presence of SUHI, but these were linked to spaces of lower socioeconomic level and, for the most part, would form new urban spaces within the city. On the other hand, SUCI had a greater spatial presence in the study area and in the urban morphology, being found mostly in areas of high socioeconomic level and in consolidated spaces with few possibilities of generating new constructions.
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The Andean Altiplano-Puna is located at an elevation of approximately 4000 m.a.s.l. and is delineated by the Western and the Eastern Andes Cordillera. The high-altitude wetlands (HAWs) in the Central Andes are unique ecosystems located in... more
The Andean Altiplano-Puna is located at an elevation of approximately 4000 m.a.s.l. and is delineated by the Western and the Eastern Andes Cordillera. The high-altitude wetlands (HAWs) in the Central Andes are unique ecosystems located in the Altiplano that provide many ecosystem services. The objective of this study was to characterize the spatial heterogeneity of the environmental conditions associated with varying hydrology of the HAW, Salar de Tara, in the Andean Altiplano. Sediment samples of up to 20 cm in depth were obtained from various salt flat sub-environments. The samples were analyzed using proxies for mineralogical and chemical composition, thermal analysis, and magnetic susceptibility. Diatom and ostracod communities were also identified and analyzed. The results reflected changes in the geochemistry, carbon content, mineralogy, and magnetic properties of the sediments that can be explained by variations in the sources of water input to the Salar de Tara. The sub-environments depend on the supply of water via the groundwater recharge of springs adjacent to the streamflow from the Zapaleri River, which promotes greater diversity and richness of genera. Our results suggest that water extraction at industrial levels greatly impacts the persistence of hydrologically connected HAWs, which concentrate a worldwide interest in brine mining.
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One of the most crucial discussions within water resource management is the debate between those who defend the concept of economic efficiency and those who privilege notions of social equity. This tension is located at the core of binary... more
One of the most crucial discussions within water resource management is the debate between those who defend the concept of economic efficiency and those who privilege notions of social equity. This tension is located at the core of binary categories that currently constitute the public debate within comparative water law and policy. These categories are commodity/human right, private property/common property, free-market/state regulation, and market value/community value. This paper explores this tension by studying how neoclassical economics understands efficiency and tracing its rise as a key hegemonic principle for water resource management. I also present equity as a conceptual opposition to efficiency and describe its institutionalization through the human-right-to-water frame. A problematization of both the equity approach and the human- right-to-water frame follows. Finally, I propose a political ecology approach to better understand the tension between efficiency and equity and offer recommendations for informing the water research agenda on efficiency/equity.
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Geographical research on lithium and other renewable energy materials explores the geopolitical dimensions of resource supply and the 'new geographies' associated with an expanding resource frontier. The material characteristics and... more
Geographical research on lithium and other renewable energy materials explores the geopolitical dimensions of resource supply and the 'new geographies' associated with an expanding resource frontier. The material characteristics and environmental conditions of lithium production, however, are largely overlooked in this perspective. In the context of a global speculative boom for lithium linked to its growing role in energy storage, this paper adopts a grounded, exploratory approach to investigate the dynamics of production and resource management at one of the world's most significant sources of lithium: the brine deposits of the Atacama Salt Flat/Salar de Atacama in northern Chile. We show how lithium production from brine has a distinctive 'eco-regulatory' character as it involves managing a series of hydrogeological conditions and physical processes that are largely external to capital. The paper highlights the infrastructures (pumps, pipes, ponds) associated with the harvesting of lithium from brine and examines how production on the salar generates a series of ecological contradictions (notably around water depletion) with potential to disrupt accumulation. We also examine the multiple flexibilities afforded by the eco-regulatory character of production, and show how these enable lithium producers to adapt fixed infrastructures to dynamic political economic conditions. By focusing on both contradictions and flexibilities of lithium production, the paper draws attention to trajectories of capitalisation in the lithium value chain and their environmental consequences; and considers the political-economic incentives shaping further capitalisation. The paper concludes by considering the implications of this exploratory case study for critical resource geography.
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In the Atacama Desert highlands, Aymara communities have practised herding since pre-Hispanic times. Currently, large areas of the mountains' ecosystems are under official protection. This situation has created tensions between Aymara... more
In the Atacama Desert highlands, Aymara communities have practised herding since pre-Hispanic times. Currently, large areas of the mountains' ecosystems are under official protection. This situation has created tensions between Aymara herding practices and official conservation policies. In this article, we document herding practices and how they have contributed to the production of these ecosystems. We also explore several conservation policies in the area and how they clash with Aymara herding. To do this, we make use of ethnography and state conservation plans. We suggest that these policies reproduce colonial dynamics, creating conflicting aims and affecting Aymara territorial rights. We conclude that traditional Aymara ecological knowledge and practices should guide the conservation of these mountain ecosystems.
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La provincia de El Loa, habitada históricamente por población andina dedicada a actividades agrícolas, pastoriles y de intercambio, ha ocupado un lugar estratégico en la expansión del extractivismo cuprífero chileno y su inserción... more
La provincia de El Loa, habitada históricamente por población andina dedicada a actividades agrícolas, pastoriles y de intercambio, ha ocupado un lugar estratégico en la expansión del extractivismo cuprífero chileno y su inserción internacional. Ahí se emplaza Chuquicamata, la que fuera durante parte importante del siglo XX la mina de cobre más grande del mundo. Para avanzar en la comprensión de las transformaciones territoriales que produce esta actividad, efectuamos un análisis histórico-estructural de la agricultura de la provincia entre 1929/30 y 2006/07. Caracterizamos analíticamente las transformaciones agrarias de la zona relacionando su desenvolvimiento con la expansión de la gran minería cuprífera. Teóricamente, nos posicionamos desde el paradigma de la cuestión agraria, reproblematizado a partir de los estudios sobre el extractivismo. En términos metodológicos, usamos estadísticas descriptivas de censos agropecuarios para caracterizar la estructura agraria, y fuentes históricas y secundarias para comprender sus conexiones con la explotación cuprífera.
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In 1906, the Guggenheim Exploration Company (GUGGENEX), financed the low-grade copper project that Daniel Cowen Jackling had started three years earlier at Bingham Canyon (Utah, US). With GUGGENEX’s investment, the exploitation of copper... more
In 1906, the Guggenheim Exploration Company (GUGGENEX), financed the low-grade copper project that Daniel Cowen Jackling had started three years earlier at Bingham Canyon (Utah, US). With GUGGENEX’s investment, the exploitation of copper entered into the open-pit mining era. Nine years later, the Guggenheims applied the industrial experience acquired in Bingham Canyon in the opening of the Chuquicamata Mine (northern Chile). In both cases, all the crucial decisions about the mining were made in Manhattan, New York, while the local ter- ritories faced these projects’ outcomes. From a geohistorical standpoint, and through the analysis of several archives, in this paper, we explore how the extractive territories associated with these mines were remotely produced, transformed, and redefined; becoming “teleconnected miningscapes”. We aimed to visualize how the cross-sector partnership between large economic groups—GUGGENEX—and scientific personalities was essential in the emergence of open-pit copper mining. We argue that the miningscapes produced in Bingham Canyon and Chuquicamata mines are an entanglement of scientific discourses, research (geology and metallurgy), materi- alities (capital and technology), human bodies (workers) and nature (copper porphyries, water, air, etc.) that were unevenly and remotely produced from the headquarters of GUGGENEX.
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In recent years, scholars have examined the non-or more-than-human world from a variety of unique positions. This article draws on contemporary archaeology and assemblage theories in geography to put forward an understanding of everyday... more
In recent years, scholars have examined the non-or more-than-human world from a variety of unique positions. This article draws on contemporary archaeology and assemblage theories in geography to put forward an understanding of everyday geopolitics that includes the presence of objects in the formation of state subjectivity. Our approach, however, reveals not only this disciplining force of objects but also the ontological absences that are also at the heart of post-structuralist theories of subjectivity. As such, the formation of object-oriented geopolitical subjectivity is also always haunted by these other affective forces that are part of being in the world. These theoretical considerations are substantiated in our study of the material culture of a military outpost in the highlands of northern Chile where the objects left behind by soldiers offer insight into the complexities of state subjectification and state-society relations in border regions.
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The Chilean water model imposed by the Chilean dictatorship in 1981 is broadly known as a radical example of neoliberal water management. Several studies have focused their analyses on this model, and its relation to mining, from a... more
The Chilean water model imposed by the Chilean dictatorship in 1981 is broadly known as a radical example of neoliberal water management. Several studies have focused their analyses on this model, and its relation to mining, from a political ecology perspective; however, this has minimized the broader historical context. In this paper, we followed a geohistorical standpoint to gain an extensive understanding of the processes of mining development and the related water extraction in the Atacama Desert. By analyzing different official documents, historical sources and scientific discourses of the 19th and early 20th centuries, we aimed to denaturalize the idea of the Atacama Desert as hyper-arid space, rich in mineral resources. By doing so, from a political ecology perspective, and with a critical approach to territory, we interrogated the mining development in the Taltal district (1840-1920). This exercise led us to understand the Atacama Desert as a socially-produced mining territory, or miningscape, where foreign actors have produced hegemonic discourses and uneven materialities. Here, water, minerals, global markets, scientific knowledge, political and legal discourses, and colonialism have inevitably become interwoven in a territorial long-standing production process. Thus, we propose that the production of miningscapes and waterscapes are entangled process in the Andes mining territories. In turn, this process has enabled the reproduction of the Chilean state, capital accumulation, and the consolidation of a modern project at the expense of local populations and rationalities, which have been invisibilized.
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Multiple dynamics produce the ecological present. For the past 30 years or more, in the southern Atacama salt pan (Salar) in northern Chile, extractive industries have been accumulating minerals and water in exhaustive quantities, taking... more
Multiple dynamics produce the ecological present. For the past 30 years or more, in the southern Atacama salt pan (Salar) in northern Chile, extractive industries have been accumulating minerals and water in exhaustive quantities, taking ever more than may be regenerated. However, the exhaustion of the Salar de Atacama involves a more complex set of symptoms than demonstrable environmental depletion. Fragmented scientific knowledge of the salt pan due to the privatization of water and under-regulation of mining provides a partial explanation for this complexity. In this article, we discuss these political conditions of environmental knowledge and, using a range of methodologies, we show that the scale of resource extraction threatens social and environmental harm and exhaustion may manifest in unexpected ways. We used remote sensing data to elaborate maps that reflect environmental change (1985-2017), relative to the intensification of extractive activity for copper and lithium salts in the area. Using these data, we undertook ethnographic and participatory mapping work to discuss with people from the Peine Indigenous community how they have experienced ecological change related to mineral and water extraction in the southern Salar. A review of the historical and archaeological material helps us to show the depth of Indigenous people's relationships to and knowledge of the salt pan and surrounds, and how social memory may be ecological. Combining the different results of our research, we argue that ecological exhaustion emerges from social, environmental and political conditions driven by both tangible and uncertain impacts of industrial extraction. Revealing these conditions of exhaustion raises key questions about the complexity of the effects of extraction.
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El caso de la instalación de la industria salmonera en la región de Los Lagos nos permite revisar la relación entre comoditización territorial e identidad. En este trabajo identificamos los procesos a través de los que la materialidad del... more
El caso de la instalación de la industria salmonera en la región de Los Lagos nos permite revisar la relación entre comoditización territorial e identidad. En este trabajo identificamos los procesos a través de los que la materialidad del salmón pudo alterar o gatillar transformaciones en la identidad local. A partir de una revisión y discusión de la literatura sobre neoliberalismo como formas de producción de ciudadanía y subjetividad, con especial énfasis en aquella que ha explorado el caso latinoamericano, pero también la literatura de la ecología política sobre comoditización de la naturaleza respondemos: ¿Qué respuestas se han generado entre los actores locales a los efectos que la llegada y producción del commodity salmón ha tenido sobre sus identidades? Para argumentar desde la ecología política y enfoques afines, la tesis que la comoditización de la naturaleza y el territorio no solo implica el control o coproducción del medio ambiente, sino que también está entretejida con los procesos de formación de identidad y ciudadanía. En otros términos, a través de la gestión y control de la naturaleza y el territorio se articulan determinadas formas de identidades que, a su vez, influyen en dicha gestión.
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Copper mining and other extractive industries in the Atacama Desert have exerted pressure on water resources, with dramatic socio-environmental effects. The drying-out of the San Pedro de Inacaliri river basin is a paradigmatic case of... more
Copper mining and other extractive industries in the Atacama Desert have exerted pressure on water resources, with dramatic socio-environmental effects. The drying-out of the San Pedro de Inacaliri river basin is a paradigmatic case of this situation. Indigenous communities that used to graze their livestock in the area have seen the utter degradation of the ecosystems which have sustained their activities since time immemorial. In this article, we aim to contribute to the growing literature on the effects of extractive industries in northern Chile, based on an archaeological analysis of the remnants of the material culture in the basin. This analysis will complement historical and qualitative data to present a diachronic approach to the history of human use, occupation and abandonment of the basin and its transformations in time and space. The work analyses human occupation of the basin over thousands of years down to the present, concluding that while there was increasing use of the territory since pre-Hispanic times, the intense human occupation has practically disappeared since industrial extraction began in the 1950s, and indigenous families have been forced to emigrate. Results show one of the most radical cases of water resource dispossession in the recent history of Chile.
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The territorial transformations driven by the opening of the Chilean economy to the free market forty years ago have been analyzed from multiple perspectives. One of them was proposed in 2003 by Antonio Daher, describing certain regions... more
The territorial transformations driven by the opening of the Chilean economy to the free market forty years ago have been analyzed from multiple perspectives. One of them was proposed in 2003 by Antonio Daher, describing certain regions as “commodi- ty-regions”, referring to those whose economic activity focuses on the export of one or two goods, as a way of insertion in global markets. In this work we revisit this concept and problematize it from the perspective of political ecology, based on four dimensions (pro- duction, boom and crisis cycles, materiality of commoditized nature, and identity) applied to two cases: Antofagasta Region (mining of the copper) and Los Lagos Region (salmon farming). Our argument is that, to understand the territorial transformation that these regions have experienced, we must rst recognize the project of territorial neoliberalization; and second, politicize the analysis of the project by considering the materiality of nature that will be commoditized.
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Resumen El Código de Aguas chileno es conocido por ser un ejemplo radical de libre mercado. Como parte del proceso de implementación de este modelo en el Desierto de Atacama, la dictadura militar inició en 1983 la privatización de los... more
Resumen El Código de Aguas chileno es conocido por ser un ejemplo radical de libre mercado. Como parte del proceso de implementación de este modelo en el Desierto de Atacama, la dictadura militar inició en 1983 la privatización de los derechos de aguas superficiales en las comunidades atacameñas de Lasana y Chiu-Chiu. El objetivo de esta acción fue de-colectivizar las aguas bajo un sistema que facilitase la libre transacción de derechos entre el sector agrícola a los sectores minero y sanitario. Bajo la mirada de la ecología política, en este artículo busco responder a las preguntas de cómo la dictadura privatizó los derechos de aguas en Lasana y Chiu-Chiu para producir un mercado de aguas y cómo, mediante esta acción, reconfiguró el paisaje hídrico de estas comunidades. Para ello recurro a entrevistas en profundidad, análisis de archivo y la ilustración de imágenes satelitales. Los resultados visibilizan el cómo la dictadura al ignorar formas de riego tradicional, ejercer coacción y mentir deliberadamente a los regantes locales, regularizó menos agua de la que la que solían utilizar. Ello generó un excedente el cual fue centralizadamente transferido, a las industrias extractivas. Palabras clave: Desierto de Atacama, atacameños, Chile, privatización de aguas, riego Abstract The Chilean Water Code is known as a radical example of a free market model for resource management. As part of the implementation of this model in the Atacama Desert , in 1983 the military dictatorship began to privatize surface water rights in the Atacama communities of Lasana and Chiu-Chiu. The objective of this action was to decollectivize water under a system that facilitated the transfer of rights between the agricultural sector to the mining and sanitary sectors. In light of a political ecology framework, in this article, I address questions of how the dictatorship privatized water rights in Lasana and Chiu-Chiu to produce a water market, and how, through this action, it reconfigured the water
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Scholars who have critically analyzed the commodification of nature have explored how the specific bio-physical features of the objects to be commodified can shape the outcome of the commodification process. Thus, the establishment and... more
Scholars who have critically analyzed the commodification of nature have explored how the specific bio-physical features of the objects to be commodified can shape the outcome of the commodification process. Thus, the establishment and behavior of a market system is closer to a political struggle than it is a simple technical and spontaneous process. Despite their contributions, these approaches have not focused on the resistance that cultural exegesis, self-identification, and the affective connection between the human and non-human pose to market systems. In this paper, I show how the Atacameño people from the Atacama Desert (Chile) have subverted the radical pro-water market model imposed by the Chilean military dictatorship in 1981 by relying on their water-related cultural values. In some Atacameño communities, the water market has not operated to ensure that water rights are put to those uses with the highest economic value (e.g., mining or urban water consumption). Indeed, in these communities , internal rules both forbid the sale of water rights to the mining sector and regulate the distribution of water within the community in terms that operate as barriers to other transactions. These rules form part of a moral economy of water that is a concrete ethic based on shared values and affective connections between humans and non-humans, mandating how people should relate to one another in relation to water. Together, these relations have decommodified water and contradict the neoliberal explanation of how a free water market should work.
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El Código de Aguas chileno de 1981 es un caso radical de libre mercado. En el desierto de Atacama, los atacameños de la ciudad de Calama han movilizado su identidad indígena y la celebración de tradiciones dentro del contexto de la... more
El Código de Aguas chileno de 1981 es un caso radical de libre mercado. En el desierto de Atacama, los atacameños de la ciudad de Calama han movilizado su identidad indígena y la celebración de tradiciones dentro del contexto de la imposición de este código. Utilizando un enfoque de ecología política, en este artículo exploro cómo la reclamación de los atacameños en contra del modelo neoliberal de aguas está entretejida con el proceso de formación de identidad, tradiciones y el comportamiento del mercado. Para ello, estudio transacciones de derechos de aguas y realizo entrevistas a dirigentes urbanos. Los resultados permiten cuestionar la hipótesis de que en un libre mercado los derechos de agua fluyen hacia usos de mayor valor económico.
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The Chilean water model has been described as a textbook example of a successful free water market system. This paper analyses water-rights transactions to determine how this water market has behaved in the northern Atacama Desert. It... more
The Chilean water model has been described as a textbook example of a successful free water market system. This paper analyses water-rights transactions to determine how this water market has behaved in the northern Atacama Desert. It questions the neoliberal assumption that Chile’s unregulated water market has acted as an active tool to reallocate water towards uses that provide the highest economic value. Instead, it argues that the state is the central actor in water allocation. This problematizes the notion that the Chilean water model is one of the most unregulated in the world.
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The Chilean water model has been described as a textbook example of a free-market water system. This article contributes to the critiques of this model by showing the effect of its implementation in the Atacameño community of Chiu-Chiu,... more
The Chilean water model has been described as a textbook example of a free-market water system. This article contributes to the critiques of this model by showing the effect of its implementation in the Atacameño community of Chiu-Chiu, located in the Atacama Desert in the south-central Andes. In this community, the privatization of water rights ignored local water management practices that had produced a high-altitude wetland (known as a vega). This led to the inhabitants’ dispossession of crucial water rights and to wetland degradation. This process belies statements that the Chilean model relies on an unregulated market and instead highlights the state’s role in marginalizing local irrigation practices by reducing the water consumption of the indigenous population while keeping the copper mining industry (the main source of Chilean income) and related growing urban populations supplied with water.
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Since the War of the Pacific against Peru and Bolivia (1879–1883), the Chilean State has constantly reproduced its sovereign power in the Atacama Desert by using different technologies of governance. During the Pinochet military regime... more
Since the War of the Pacific against Peru and Bolivia (1879–1883), the Chilean State has constantly reproduced its sovereign power in the Atacama Desert by using different technologies of governance. During the Pinochet military regime (1973–1990), this process was radicalized through the militarization of the area. This militarization, in turn, produced new materialities in the desert landscape, such as the Topaín military outpost. In this article, we use archaeological evidence in order to reveal the everyday life of this base. This research is the first approach to this geographic area from the perspective of the Archaeology of Conflict. This, in turn, constitutes a methodological innovation for developing a new understanding of the reproduction of contemporary state sovereignty through the material culture of everyday life.
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As one of the earliest and deepest cases of neoliberal reform, Chile's political economic model has been the subject of extensive debate. The associated environmental law and policy that emerged in this context has, however, received... more
As one of the earliest and deepest cases of neoliberal reform, Chile's political economic model has been the subject of extensive debate. The associated environmental law and policy that emerged in this context has, however, received little attention. The country's environmental policymaking process as well as the character and effects of the environmental regime that emerged are examined. Environmental policymaking has been tightly constrained by institutional and political arrangements that embody neoliberal principles such that legislation only advances when internal demands connect up with global forces. As a result, and despite many regulatory initiatives, the environmental regime expresses a strongly market-enabling quality instead of the market-regulating character commonly ascribed to environmental law and policy.
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This paper presents an institutional analysis of hydropower development in Chile, focusing on the main legal institutions involved and relevant jurisprudence. Hydropower expansion took place within a neoliberal institutional framework... more
This paper presents an institutional analysis of hydropower development in Chile, focusing on the main legal institutions involved and relevant jurisprudence. Hydropower expansion took place within a neoliberal institutional framework imposed by the military government (1973–1990) that included reforms in both the water and electricity sectors. One of the stated purposes of these reforms was to remove ideology from both water management and electricity generation and ensure the neutrality of the state. The paper argues that the security of property rights for hydropower activities is not value-neutral but sustained only through marginalizing other water rights and interests, such as in-stream uses.
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La idea de pluralismo legal (o jurídico) está escasamente representada en la literatura en español. Motivado por ello, el presente trabajo es una invitación para que el lector se familiarice con la genealogía y principales elementos del... more
La idea de pluralismo legal (o jurídico) está escasamente representada en la literatura en español. Motivado por ello, el presente trabajo es una invitación para que el lector se familiarice con la genealogía y principales elementos del enfoque aportado por esta idea. Para tal propósito, en primer lugar, se discutirá la ideología del centralismo legal como principal blanco de ataque del pluralismo legal, luego, en segundo lugar, se desarrollará la alternativa ofrecida por el pluralismo legal, destacándose sus diversas manifestaciones, evolución y críticas.
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han investigado cómo las características biofísicas de los objetos a mercantilizar pueden con gurar los resultados de los procesos de mercantilización. En consecuencia, el establecimiento y comportamiento de un sistema de mercado se... more
han investigado cómo las características biofísicas de los objetos a mercantilizar pueden con gurar los resultados de los procesos de mercantilización. En consecuencia, el establecimiento y comportamiento de un sistema de mercado se acerca más a una lucha política que a un proceso técnico simple y espontáneo. Al margen de sus aportes, estas perspectivas no se enfocan en la resistencia que presentan la exégesis cultural, la auto-identi cación y el vínculo afectivo entre humanos y no humanos a los sistemas de mercado. Este artículo muestra cómo los Atacameños han logrado alterar el modelo radical de gestión impuesto por la dictadura en 1981, mediante el respeto de sus valores culturales respecto del agua.
En algunas comunidades atacameñas, el mercado del agua no ha garantizado los derechos sobre el agua, sino que se privilegian los usos que generan mayor valor económico (p. ej. la minería o el consumo urbano). Aun así, en esas comunidades, las normas internas no sólo prohíben la venta de derechos sobre el agua a la minería, sino que también regulan la distribución del agua dentro de la comunidad de forma tal que impiden otras transacciones. Estas normas forman parte de una economía moral del agua, una ética concreta que se basa en los valores compartidos y los vínculos afectivos entre humanos y no humanos y que determina cómo el pueblo debe relacionarse con los demás en torno al agua. En conjunto, estas relaciones han desmercantilizado el agua y se han opuesto a la explicación neoliberal sobre cómo debería funcionar un mercado libre del agua.
En algunas comunidades atacameñas, el mercado del agua no ha garantizado los derechos sobre el agua, sino que se privilegian los usos que generan mayor valor económico (p. ej. la minería o el consumo urbano). Aun así, en esas comunidades, las normas internas no sólo prohíben la venta de derechos sobre el agua a la minería, sino que también regulan la distribución del agua dentro de la comunidad de forma tal que impiden otras transacciones. Estas normas forman parte de una economía moral del agua, una ética concreta que se basa en los valores compartidos y los vínculos afectivos entre humanos y no humanos y que determina cómo el pueblo debe relacionarse con los demás en torno al agua. En conjunto, estas relaciones han desmercantilizado el agua y se han opuesto a la explicación neoliberal sobre cómo debería funcionar un mercado libre del agua.
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Introducción al libro Bustos, B., Prieto, M. & Barton, J. (2015) Ecología Política en Chile. Naturaleza, Propiedad, Conocimiento y Poder. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria
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En el presente informe se presentan los resultados de un estudio preliminar de imágenes satelitales sobre el proceso de expansión de extracción de salmuera en el Salar de Atacama (II Región de Antofagasta, Chile). Los resultados son: (1)... more
En el presente informe se presentan los resultados de un estudio preliminar de imágenes satelitales sobre el proceso de expansión de extracción de salmuera en el Salar de Atacama (II Región de Antofagasta, Chile). Los resultados son: (1) un mapa que ilustra la expansión en el tiempo y en el espacio de las piscinas de extracción de salmuera durante el periodo comprendido entre los años 1985 y 2017; (2) una tabla con el cálculo en hectáreas de la superficie de estas piscinas.
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El Código de Aguas chileno de 1981 es un caso radical de libre mercado. En el desierto de Atacama, los atacameños de la ciudad de Calama han movilizado su identidad indígena y la celebración de tradiciones dentro del contexto de la... more
El Código de Aguas chileno de 1981 es un caso radical de libre mercado. En el desierto de Atacama, los atacameños de la ciudad de Calama han movilizado su identidad indígena y la celebración de tradiciones dentro del contexto de la imposición de este código. Utilizando un enfoque de ecología política, en este artículo exploro cómo la reclamación de los atacameños en contra del modelo neoliberal de aguas está entretejida con el proceso de formación de identidad, tradiciones y el comportamiento del mercado. Para ello, estudio transacciones de derechos de aguas y realizo entrevistas a dirigentes urbanos. Los resultados permiten cuestionar la hipótesis de que en un libre mercado los derechos de agua fluyen hacia usos de mayor valor económico.
The Chilean Water Code of 1981 is a radical case of implementation of free market policies. In the Atacama Desert, the Atacameño people of the city of Calama have mobilized their indigenous identity and traditional celebrations within the context of the imposition of this code. Using a political ecology framework, in this article I examine how their claims, in opposition to the neoliberal model of water exploitation, are interwoven with the process of identity formation, traditions, and market behavior. For this purpose, I have studied transactions of water rights and conducted interviews of urban leaders. The results bring into question the neoliberal hypothesis that water rights flow towards the uses of greatest economic value within a free market.
The Chilean Water Code of 1981 is a radical case of implementation of free market policies. In the Atacama Desert, the Atacameño people of the city of Calama have mobilized their indigenous identity and traditional celebrations within the context of the imposition of this code. Using a political ecology framework, in this article I examine how their claims, in opposition to the neoliberal model of water exploitation, are interwoven with the process of identity formation, traditions, and market behavior. For this purpose, I have studied transactions of water rights and conducted interviews of urban leaders. The results bring into question the neoliberal hypothesis that water rights flow towards the uses of greatest economic value within a free market.