ENTRE DOS AGUAS: IDENTIDAD MORAL EN LA RELACIÓN ENTRE CORPORACIONES MINERAS Y LA COMUNIDAD INDÍGENA DE TOCONCE EN EL DESIERTO DE ATACAMA

Abstract

This paper presents research results concerning the impact of moral identity on the relations between the mining industry and the Atacameño community of Toconce in the Loa river basin in northern Chile. This is an ethnographic study of the connections between the mining industry and indigenous communities based in the analysis of three aspects of this relationship: (a) the perception that Atacameños have of the social and environmental impact of mining; (b) the social memory of Atacameños from Toconce wherein they contrast the period when the mines were owned by Anaconda Company and mining in the present day; and, (c) the formal economic contract of a water lease agreed upon by a mining company and an indigenous community. The analysis indicates that the impact of an essentially negative moral identity attributed to the mining industry in the region defines, to a great extent, the expectations that Atacameño communities like those of Toconce have about what they view as the moral obligations of mining companies in the Atacama desert.