“Today There Are No Indigenous People” in Chile?: Connecting the Mapuche Struggle to Anti-Neoliberal Mobilizations in South America

Abstract

The books under review all deal with the same fundamental phenomenon: mobilization against neoliberal policies by South American indigenous groups. These works fall into two groups: those that focus on the Mapuche struggle in Chile, and those that consider anti-neoliberal indigenous mobilization in the region more broadly. Just as literature in the former group fails to draw any linkages between the Mapuche and other South American indigenous struggles, the latter body of literature does not engage with Chile as a case worthy of consideration. This essay delineates the arguments made by scholars from both groups and argues that they must be brought into dialogue with one another in order to develop both a more holistic conceptualization of the Mapuche struggle in Chile and a more complete understanding of indigenous mobilization in the region. Further empirical work is needed on how Mapuche mobilization relates to other indigenous, anti-neoliberal mobilizations in South America.