Cultural topoclimatology and hydrosocial cycles of chilean andean communities: Geographical hybrids for land-use planning

Abstract

Chile and Latin America are currently facing land-use demands as a result of neoliberal spatial configurations, namely, extractivism, commodification, and privatization of resources and territories. By incorporating hybrid concepts that reinterpret climate, water, and territory, geography is developing perspectives that overcome the society-nature dichotomy resulting from the separation of physical and human geography. The article discusses the way the indigenous Andean peoples of northern Chile have achieved the social and cultural construction of territories by synthesizing interactions among natural, social and metaphysical, as well as material and symbolic components. These elements are used to acquire knowledge, interpret, and manage the enormous variability and uncertainty that characterizes their topoclimates and hydric resources, which are considered to be an expression of diversity, complexity, and richness.