Privatizing water in the Atacama Desert and the resurgence of Atacameño indigeneity

Bibliographic Data

ID4464461
AuthorsM Prieto (0000-0003-4262-3786, University of Tarapacá, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume7
Issue2
Pages788-813
Publication date2024-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/25148486231187799
OpenAlexW4384828535
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited47

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

Aesthetics · Colonialism · Hegemony · Indigenous · Indigenous rights · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Viewpoints · Gender Studies · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Ecology

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