Economic, physical and psychological violence in Chile

This article argues that present day expansion of capital in Chile is based on the horrendous human rights violations that took place particularly after the 9/11/73 coup d’état. The coup in Chile demonstrates the owners of capital (national or international) have not and will not hesitate to use extreme violence to impose a model of development designed to meet capital needs: maximum profits. In the same manner that capital is indifferent to the consequences of the physical and psychological trauma it brings to humans, it is also indifferent to the environmental destruction it leaves in its path. This article illustrates how the system established by the dictatorship facilitates the exploitation of the labour force and the pillage of Chile's natural resources by national and multinational corporations, today. This also explains the increasing concentration of economic power and wealth in areas such as banking, insurance and the forest industry to name a few. In the case of the forest industry, the state subsidies to this sector, and the resistance of the Mapuche people, are noted. Most of the forest land is in Mapuche territory. The roots of the Mapuche struggle are the same to that of many indigenous peoples around the world: the defense of their territory and culture. As well, other social sectors in Chile are increasingly resisting capital attacks on their physical and social well being. For example, like the Mapuche, students, artisan fishermen are increasingly resisting capital. They are facing the same response from the current government.

The permanent rebellion: An interpretation of Mapuche uprisings under Chilean colonialism

This article approaches the rebellions of the Mapuche people from a longue-durée perspective, from the Occupation of the Araucanía in 1861 to the recent events of 2020. Among other things, the article explores the Popular Unity (UP) period, and the ‘Cautinazo’ in particular, considered here as an uprising that synthesised the discourses and aspirations of the Mapuche people dating back to the Occupation, while also repoliticising them by foregrounding demands for land restitution. This experience created the conditions for a new cycle of mobilisation that began in the twenty-first century. In other words, the Agrarian Reform of the UP era set the stage for more recent rebellions that are once again challenging colonial problems related to private property rights, the usurpation of land and agricultural aggression. In seeking responses to these problems, the Mapuche movement of the early twenty-first century is being revitalised.

Noun Composition in Mapudungun: Conceptual Patterns in the Naming of Places

This study intended to identify which referent features are more frequently selected in the naming of the concept class of places and, in turn, determine which are the preferred conceptualizations in Mapudungun. This language is mainly spoken by Mapuche people in central and southern areas of Chile and in the Central-West area of Argentina. To identify the features of this conceptualization, a cognitive-semantic analysis of the conceptual patterns of 112 nominal compounds pertaining to the concept subclasses of natural places (intervened and non-intervened) and non-natural places (installations and territorial divisions) was conducted. Results show that, for non-intervened natural places, an entity present in the natural place is preferably selected in the name, whereas for intervened places, an agricultural activity or an animal associated to the place is preferably chosen. Concerning installations, the preferred conceptual pattern specifies, by means of the constituent ruka ‘house’, the man-made nature of the place. Regarding territorial divisions, the preferred naming pattern combines two place concepts. This information is crucial for the creation of neologisms in Mapudungun because it guarantees that newly formed lexical units are coherent with the Mapuche worldview and do not import foreign models.

Return to the ancestral land: The semiotic map of the Mapuche people

Indigenous territorial claims are a long-standing concern in the history of Latin America. Land and nature have profound meaning in indigenous thinking, which is neither totally understood nor legitimized by the rest of society. This article is aimed at shedding light on this matter by examining the meanings at stake in the territorial claims of the Mapuche people. The Mapuche are an indigenous group in Chile, who are striving to recover their ancestral land. This analysis will be based on the concept of Umwelt, coined by von Uexküll to refer to the way in which species interpret their world in connection with the meaning-making process. Considering the applications of Umwelt to the human being, the significance assigned to land and nature by the Mapuche people emerges as a system of meaning that persists over time and promotes interdependence between people and the environment. On the other hand, the territorial claim of the Mapuche movement challenges the fragmentation between individuals and their space, echoing proposals from human geography that emphasize the role of people in the constitution of places.

Indigenous Slavery's Archive in Seventeenth-Century Chile

This article considers the creation and activation of certification documents codifying the capture-event and moment of enslavement of Reche-Mapuche people during the Araucanian wars with Spanish settlers in seventeenth-century Chile. Certification documents were normalized by the military bureaucracy and activated by slave owners who subjected and maintained Reche-Mapuche men, women, and children in bondage. These documents were foundational because they could reproduce what purportedly happened in other documentary and oral forms and facilitated the circulation of essentialized truths about the enslavement of individuals and about slavery writ large. In their legal petitions for freedom, Reche-Mapuche slaves had to speak against the grain of these legal instrumenta, which expressed a legally enforceable act or action as well as evidence of that action. Certification documents also had an archival afterlife following enactment of the abolition of Indigenous slavery in 1679.

Decolonizing Indigenous Law: Self-Determination and Vulnerability in the Mapuche Case

In the present essay, the author—and Mapuche, at the same time—critically analyzes the construction of the Mapuche people as a “vulnerable human group” under the International Human Rights Law and then, according to decolonial option, proposes a hypothesis: if the indigenous people are vulnerable, by definition, to claim the right to self-determination, in the Mapuche case, it is an oxymoron.

Tracing institutional surprises in the water–energy nexus: Stalled projects of Chile’s small hydropower boom

In this paper, we examine small hydropower trends in Chile through institutional and ethnographic research and we reflect on what lessons this case provides for scholarship on the water–energy nexus. Contrary to the tendency in water–energy nexus scholarship to advocate for further integration of water and energy management, this paper explains an approach to investigation that answers recent calls to politicize the nexus by examining inequity and inefficiency. Methodologically, we trace institutional surprises in water–energy nexus interactions. Internationally, small hydropower growth is part of a boom in renewable energy, yet in Chile the reality is more complicated. We examine the paradoxical trend of hundreds of stalled small hydropower projects that remain incomplete throughout central to southern Chile. These stalled projects indicate unexpected behavior in how water, energy, and environmental institutions interact, in Mapuche Indigenous territory specifically where projects are highly conflictive. A fantastical materialism is also visible. Government and private sector ambitions of organized, massive, and lucrative small hydropower development are resulting in unruly material realities, yet over time capital finds an unforeseen way to produce value. In this case, water rights are being sold with approved environmental impact studies on the water market. Overall, our findings challenge the assumptions that commodifying water can be done equitably and efficiently for all parties involved, in particular for the Mapuche people. Findings also question hydropower’s future viability as a sustainable renewable energy endeavor in a market-driven system.

Cuerpo mapuche en campos de concentración: excepción y diferencia en la Conquista del desierto / Mapuche’s body in concentration camps: an exception and a difference in the Conquest of the desert

Este artículo revisa el proceso histórico de la ‘Conquista del desierto’ y la existencia de campos de concentración para indígenas en Argentina a través de una lectura de hermenéutica filosófica. El objetivo del artículo es interpretar el periodo y el uso de campos como instancias que configuraron la diferenciación del pueblo mapuche como sujeto racializado en la sociedad argentina. Los resultados de la exposición muestran que la marginación del cuerpo mapuche ocurre por el registro de excepciones y que aquella es disputada por sujetos mapuche. This paper reviews the historical process of the ‘Conquest of the Desert’ and the existence of concentration camps for indigenous people in Argentina. The research is conducted through philosophical hermeneutics. The objective of the paper is to read the period and the use concentration camps as instances that shaped the differentiation of the Mapuche people as a racialized subject in Argentine society. The results of the argumentation show that marginalization of the Mapuche body occurs through the registration of exceptions, which is disputed by Mapuche subjects.

Opportunities and tensions in supporting intercultural productive activities: The case of urban and rural Mapuche entrepreneurship programs

Over the last decade, entrepreneurship programs have proven to be an effective strategy to fight poverty in various contexts, but what happens when these programs are meant for Mapuche people? The purpose of this article was to analyze the cultural characteristics, opportunities, and associated challenges of entrepreneurship programs aimed at Mapuche people in rural and urban areas of Chile, based on the experiences and meanings of their beneficiaries. To fulfill this objective, a qualitative study was conducted, providing an in-depth examination of the experiences of 17 Mapuche people who have participated in entrepreneurship interventions in the Metropolitan and Bio Bio Regions, Chile. The article describes the initial conditions of the enterprises and the general contribution of the programs, the geographic and cultural characteristics associated with the development of their enterprises, the points of agreement and tensions between the business world and the Mapuche world, the aspects of the programs that reinforce Mapuche entrepreneurship, and the distinctive effects of entrepreneurship as implemented by Mapuche people. Points of agreement and challenges associated with interculturality in the field of entrepreneurship and social programs are discussed, as well as notions of culture, cultural identity, and recognition.