Browsing by Autor "Mauricio Lorca"

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Mining indigenous territories: Consensus, tensions and ambivalences in the Salar de Atacama
(Elsevier BV, 2022) Mauricio Lorca; Manuel Olivera Andrade; Melisa Escosteguy; Jonas Köppel; Morgan Scoville-Simonds; Marc Hufty
Lithium mining in Chile's Salar de Atacama (SdA) has a relatively long and controversial history, especially when it comes to the local Indigenous peoples. In this context, this paper looks at the ways mining activities, and different visions of territory and indigeneity co-produce each other in the particular context of the SdA. For this, we use historical and ethnographic methods and draw on studies in anthropology and geography. We aim to escape simplistic images of Indigenous peoples’ reactions to mining as reflecting victimhood, resistance, or strategic pragmatism, and show instead how individuals and groups organize and express themselves in ambivalent ways, maintaining complex relationships with both mining and the territory. According to our local interlocutors, struggles around territory in the SdA mainly concern water scarcity, the survival of this unique ecosystem's biological diversity, as well as continuity and change in local lifeways. While recent agreements between mining companies and local communities may benefit some individuals, they are also generating inter- and intra- community tensions over these issues. We find that mining shapes what 'indigenous' means and who can claim this identity, while Indigenous mobilization in turn shapes how mining is perceived and carried out. Together, mining and Indigenous mobilization produce a particular kind of territory, pervaded by diverse lines of both consensus and tension. Rather than contradictions, the ambivalent positions Indigenous peoples maintain become comprehensible when considering, ethnographically and historically, the particular places and lifeworlds they inhabit, and the asymmetrical patterns of constraint and opportunity they face. More broadly, the paper raises questions about the implications of a global transition to renewable energy based on lithium battery technologies, and ethical responses to the climate crisis.
“Se instaló el diablo en el Salar”
(2023) Mauricio Lorca; Manuel Olivera Andrade; Ingrid Garcés
The capital and mining that has been in the Antofagasta region since the late 19th century brought profound social and environmental transformation. The deep-rooted process finds continuity and expansion in today’s lithium mining of the Atacama salt flats (Salar de Atacama). The ethnic dimension of collective action in this territory since the 1990s has redefined intercultural relations. In the second decade of this century, mining companies and Atacameño organizations agreed to direct money transfers as compensation for the negative impacts of mining operations, especially on the water balance. The communities’ negotiation and territorial management strategies have raised strong questioning within and among Atacameño organizations, shifting the traditional communities vs. companies conflict to within the indigenous organizations. This article describes this new stage of Atacameño organization and mobilization.