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Summer
2000 Research Report
Joe
Bryan
"Transnationalizing
the Local: Mapuche Land Rights and the Politics
of Development in Southern Chile"
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| Nuts
from the araucaria tree (Arauacria araucana)
like the one pictured in the foreground
are an important cultural food for the
Mapuche. Araucaria trees are emblematic
of the southern temperate rainforests
that once covered much of southern Chile,
though now such forests exist only either
in the Andes or in Chilean Patagonia
to the south. In the Mapuche homeland,
only small fragments of native forest
exist, cleared to make way for agriculture
and forestry plantations. |
For
five weeks in June and July, 2000, I carried
out field research on exploring the ways in which
Mapuche social movements in southern Chile engage
international debates on indigenous peoples rights
to bolster their ongoing efforts to win recognition
of their rights to self-determination and territory.
My research centered on a series of interviews
I conducted with members of three Mapuche organizations,
each one of which has engaged a distinct set
of political strategies to win recognition of
their rights. Though all three organizations
shared a common set of claims - recognition of
their territorial rights and the right to create
some form of autonomy - the means by which they
seek to realize those rights suggest a variety
of distinct configurations of power relationships
operating at a variety of levels ranging from
the local to the national to the international.
By using a political ecology framework, I focused
on the idea of territory as both an abstract
term best articulated by international indigenous
peoples movements and as a set of factors fundamental
to shaping the quotidian realities of Mapuche
living in the VIII and IX Regions of southern
Chile.
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| Forestry
plantations surround many Mapuche communities,
occupying lands expropriated in the 1970s
and sold to private interests by the Pinochet
government. Since 1990, Mapuche communities
have increasingly resorted to "recuperating" community
lands from forestry plantations as a means
to gain political recognition for their
historic rights to the land and to accommodate
community needs to additional lands. |
In
terms of logisitics, my time in the field went
relatively smoothly. I was able to meet with all
of the people that I had contacted in preparing
my proposal. Each of these contacts served as valuable
points of introduction to other Mapuche activists,
as well as providing me with much needed feedback
on my plans for fieldwork. The major complicating
factor in my fieldwork quickly became the weather,
as I was turned back from several communities by
the worst winter weather that had been recorded
in that region in thirty years. Extensively flooding
and heavy snows inhibited my ability to spend the
time in the communities that I had hoped for, I
spite of numerous offers to spend time with a variety
of community organizations. These complications
meant that I spent the majority of my time with
the political leadership of the various Mapuche
organizations in their offices located in the city
of Temuco. In addition, I did some collection of
primary and secondary documents in libraries and
archives in Temuco. Finally, at the request of
one of the organizations that I profiled during
my fieldwork, I led a series of three workshops
for members of the organization on issues that
they had a particular interest in. These workshops
afforded me unique opportunities to discuss aspects
of my research in a group setting that involved
the organization's urban leadership as well their
rural constituents.
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Although
tree plantations are frequently referred
to as "forests," they are in fact monocrops
of carefully bred tree species. Heavy
use of fungicides and herbicides ensures
that only planted trees are found on
plantations, removing a whole range of
understory plants used by the Mapuche
for a variety of purposes. Loss of food,
medicines, and forage for livestock previously
found in forests has concentrated impacts
on those few lands that remain under
Mapuche control.
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In
developing the material I gathered over the course
of my time in Chile, I am increasingly focusing
on the issue of territoriality. In particular,
I am looking at the ways in which competing practices
of territoriality shape the physical and political
landscape in which Mapuche claims to specific sets
of rights are made. In keeping with the theoretical
approach outlined in my proposal, I have been using
political ecology and human geography approaches
to develop a theoretical framework for analysis
of this issue. Territory has proven to be a particularly
good topic for exploration, as it encompasses issues
of the physical environment as shaped by both Mapuche
culture and Chilean natural resource policy, as
well as a re-formulation of land claims around
the specific concept of territory advocated for
by indigenous peoples' organizations operating
at the international level. I am currently reviewing
case studies and theory addressing the issue of
territoriality in Latin America and other regions
of the world. Discussion of this topic will the
emphasis of my M.A. thesis in Geography that I
plan to complete by the end of this year.
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| Forest
plantations of Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.)
and Monterrey pine (Pinus radiata) cover
much of southern Chile. Timber from the
plantations is primarily made into chips
for export. |
My
fieldwork also afforded me further opportunity
to build on my interest in social movements. In
particular, my interviews with participants in
social movements focused on individuals whose primary
political roles are ones of representation and
translation, moving with varying degrees of facility
between rural Mapuche communities, urban political
organizations, state bureaucracies and international
networks. I am using material and observations
from my interactions with these individuals to
examine the ways in which rights-oriented claims
are made within particular political configurations.
This part of my research will engage the recent
literature on New Social Movements that have attempted
the historicity of these movements and the genesis
of their claims. Increasingly violent conflict
between Mapuche communities, private forest guards
and federal police framed my conversations with
many people this summer, and further examination
of this violence will be central to my treatment
of these issues.
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| In
spite of more than ten years of democratic
government, declining economic conditions,
continued loss of lands, and denial of
basic rights continue to affect the Mapuche.
This photo was taken in front of the regional
government offices in Temuco, where Mapuche
farmers gathered to demand relief from
economic loss that occurred when heavy
rains ruined much of their annual wheat
crop. |
A
third element of inquiry involves the question
of "indigeneity," examined here as the
reworking of identity as a political act of positioning
an individual in relation to power, be it economic,
political or social. In particular, I am exploring
how and by whom Mapuche identity is politicized
to authenticate claims of representation, engage
international debates on human rights and the environment,
and to merge the historic campesino and ethnic
claims historically made by the Mapuche. While
the issue of indigeneity is perhaps treated in
greater detail in other regions of the world, I
hope to examine some of the core assumptions about
race and human rights that orient much of what
has been written about indigenous peoples' movements
in Latin America.
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Joseph
Bryan is a Master's student in the Department
of Geography
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