Indigenous Peoples in Chile: Contesting Violence, Building New Meanings for Rights and Democracy

Abstract

While acknowledging the importance of the appropriation and mobilization of international law in defending indigenous causes in Chile and elsewhere, our analysis, based on research results collected between 2012 and 2017, suggests that indigenous conceptions of rights and democracy directly contribute to wider social acceptance of human rights struggles in Chile. Current indigenous struggles for rights in Chile are clearly conceived in terms of democratic expansion and directly confront the coherence of Chile’s institutions and its repeated human rights violations—especially the use of the anti-terrorist law—thus actively contributing to the social understanding of human rights: by sharing new meanings and making them available to other grassroots demands for justice and democracy, they contribute significantly to the democratic renewal currently underway in Chile.