The Chilean Patagonia: Territorial conflicts and environmental conservation in the 21st century

Abstract

An anthropological analysis of territorial rewriting processes in Chilean Patagonia, specifically in the Aysén region, is presented. The central thesis maintains that the presence of new non-state actors, with ownership of the land and ecosystems, and with philosophical orientations of deep ecology, generates new conditions for environmental conservation and redefines the position of traditional inhabitants, producers linked to family farming. It is critically posited that the new valuation languages operate as a political expression of power and authority, which severely impacts the possibility of reproduction of domestic units, which need ample feeding spaces for their livestock and the native forest for protection. In this way, the traditional space of daily life loses regularity due to the creation of private parks, since they have non-productive purposes and incorporate post-humanist values. Likewise, through ethnographic records, a gradual process of territorial denationalization, absence of local sovereignty and difficulties for the reproduction of the rural culture of Patagonia is verified, which make it difficult to imagine the future by the productive units.