ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Volume 9, Number 1, 2016

ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/env.2015.0023

Socio-Ecological Inequality and Water Crisis:

Views of Indigenous Communities in the Alto Loa Area

Mayarı́ Castillo Gallardo

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the case of the Likan Antai/Atacama communities, located in the Alto Loa region in
northern Chile. It presents recent data on the relation between the scenario of the water crisis, the liberal
legal architecture on water rights/mining and poverty among these indigenous peoples, with particular
emphasis on how these phenomena have been changing the articulation of their identities, strengthening
their demands and strategies based on an increase in the importance of ethnic components in the last
decades. For this, the notions of ‘‘socio-ecological inequality’’ and ‘‘environmental suffering’’ are used,
the latter focused on the point of view of indigenous peoples in this conflict.

INTRODUCTION of the identities of the indigenous peoples have remained

unexplored in the case of Chile, excepting some recent
studies.3 That is why this article aims to understand the
T his article expounds elements for the compre-
hension of the dynamics of a conflict over the use of
water, which has lasted for over 60 years, between the
link between these phenomena, based on two funda-
mental theoretical aspects: socio-ecological inequalities
original Likan Antai/Atacama1 peoples of Alto Loa and and environmental suffering.
the mining industry of the area. It aims to establish the The first one comprises the situation of poverty that
relations between this context of the water crisis, the frames this conflict over water, which is a long standing
liberal legal architecture on water rights/mining and phenomenon caused by the dynamics of dispossession of
the condition of poverty among these native peoples, indigenous groups in the context of unequal societies, as
with particular emphasis on how these phenomena have is the case of Chile. These dynamics of dispossession
modified the articulation of their identities,2 strengthen- have their origin during the colonial times in the region,
ing their demands and strategies based on an increase in were reproduced later on in the national states and con-
the importance of ethnic components in the last decades. solidated with the liberal reforms at the end of the
Although the relation between native peoples, poverty, twentieth century. Through a series of mechanisms of
and water crisis has been pointed out by several authors culture, everydayness, economic processes, and legal
in the last decades, the link between these three phe- instruments, these dynamics of dispossession have placed
nomena and the legal framework of the structural ad- indigenous peoples in a position of historic disadvantage,
justments in the 1980s in Latin America and their long- configuring a regime of inequality4 that is difficult to
term effects have been analyzed only recently. Also, the change: a societal grid anchored in situations of
impacts of these dynamics of conflict on the articulation
3
Manuel Prieto. ‘‘Privatizing Water and Articulating In-
Dr. Castillo Gallardo is a social anthropologist at the Uni- digeneity: The Chilean Water Reforms and the Atacameño
versidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano and The Inter- People (Likan Antai).’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona,
disciplinary Center for Indigenous and Intercultural Studies 2014).
4
(ICIIS) in Santiago, Chile. Sérgio Costa. ‘‘Asimetrı́as, Diferencias, interdependencias:
1In this article, both names of this indigenous people are used. Regı́menes de desigualdad en América Latina’’ [Assymetries,
The first, Likan Antai, is the one reclaimed by the indigenous differences, interdependencies: Regimes of inequality in Latin
organizations of the area. The second one, Atacama people, is America]. In Mayarı́ Castillo and Maldonado Graus. Desigual-
the name officially recognized by the state. dades. Tolerancia, legitimación y conflicto en las sociedades
2
Stuart Hall. ‘‘Who Needs Identity.’’ In Identity: A Critical latinoamericanas [Inequalities. Tolerance, legitimization and
Reader. Paul Du Gay, Jessica Evans, and Peter Redman eds. conflict in Latin American societies]. (Santiago de Chile: RIEL
(Sage Publications, 2000). Editores, 2015), 155–180.

9
10 CASTILLO GALLARDO

persistent inequality that articulates the different levels of biological effects, and includes all elements that repro-
society, simultaneously acting on individuals in vulner- duce their positions of disadvantage in the context of a
able conditions. regime of inequality. It shows there is an invisible vio-
Of these dimensions, perhaps one of the less explored lence imposed over the indigenous peoples and their
is the socio-ecological dimension: the unequal and territories: not only because there is a series of pre-
stratified distribution of environmental resources made existing variables that lead to a situation of vulnerability,
by societies according to the variables that have histori- but also because they affect new forms of victimization,
cally structured the access to socially valued goods in a like invisibility in the public sphere, expulsion from ter-
regime of inequality. In the case of Latin America, one of ritories, unfavorable negotiations, or deficient solutions in
the most important variables that determines this is the the context of the conflict. From these experiences, the
variable of ethnic belonging, as one can see emphasized actors begin to change their identities, diagnoses, and
in the literature of the region on post colonialism.5 But strategies for action: in this way, the emergence of new
despite its importance, studies on inequality have cen- forms of public protest, unrest, and collective action goes
tered on the classic variables of analysis like occupation hand in hand with the construction of new interpretations
and entry and there is scarce empirical investigation that of reality and the development of a collection of political
attempt to link variables like ethnicity and territory in action that is often inexistent. I will analyze this process
this line of reflection. Paraphrasing Auyero,6 there have in the third section of this article.
been few instances to think about how these indigenous The aforementioned theoretical aspects are used for the
individuals not only have the worst jobs and incomes, but analysis of the water crisis in Alto Loa, where we worked
also inhabit the most degraded environments, are ex- with two of the peoples most affected by the expansion of
posed to higher risks, and have less control over the re- mining in northern Chile: the Atacama indigenous com-
sources in their territories. These elements are further munities of Chiu Chiu and Lasana, located in the Loa river
developed for the case of Alto Loa in the first section. basin.9 The most important settlement of the large mining
Likewise, not many studies have paid attention to the enterprise of state copper is located just a few kilometers
fact that in this regime of inequality, one of the key from these towns: Chuquicamata and Radomiro Tomic,
elements in the situation of these peoples is the legal and recently there is also a private mining enterprise, El
framework that doesn’t only reproduce these situations Abra. The long-standing conflict for the use and contam-
from the state, but also crystallizes and legitimizes them ination of the waters of the Loa River has been compli-
on an institutional level, in turn affecting the constitution cated by recent environmental degradation caused by
of subjectivities, as pointed out by Foucault.7 Through heavy metals in suspension that arise from the waste
certain legal instruments/mechanisms that are settled in tailings of Chuquicamata, the Talabres salt bed.
long term inequalities, the state produces realities: for the The investigation that led to this article is based on a
case in question, the Likan Antai/Atacama peoples have case study10 directed by the author during 2013, 2014,
been affected by a series of mechanisms that radically and 2015. Documentary research was undertaken for a
modified their relation with resources, territory and the description and characterization of the main changes in
mining company, causing an intense conflict over the use the territory caused by the legal instruments involved in
of water. But in turn, the state radically changed the way this conflict: the Water Code, the Law of Mining Con-
in which these individuals consider themselves and their cessions, and the Indigenous Law 19.253. Concurrently
strategies of protection inside the conflict, by giving them and with the aim of documenting the dimension of en-
specific legal tools for the acknowledgement of their vironmental suffering, semi-structural interviews were
rights as indigenous peoples. The constant tension in both conducted with leaders of social organizations and in-
types of instruments is key to understand the conflict in habitants of Chiu Chiu and Lasana,11 selected from three
the region. I will go further into this phenomenon in the groups: 1) leaders of indigenous organizations and social
second section. organizations of the territory, 2) professionals and/or
In this context, the Likan Antai/Atacama are currently
subjected to an unequal distribution of environmental
9
risks and goods, which degrades their territories and This basin is located in the II Region of Antofagasta. It is the
causes a specific form of social suffering: environmental longest river in Chile and the main source of water in the Ata-
cama Desert. Both this river and its branches were declared
suffering.8 This theoretical notion gathers the experience dried up in the resolution D.G.A. N!197 dated January 24th
of living in a degraded surrounding beyond the mere 2000, because of overexploitation by the mining industry and
other companies located in the area.
10
The data this article is based on are derived from the project
5
Anı́bal Quijano, ‘‘Coloniality and Modernity/Racionality,’’ under direction of the author, FONDECYT N!111400008, fo-
Cultural Studies 21 (2007): 168–178. cused on the analysis of socio-environmentally degraded con-
6
Javier Auyero and Débora Swistun. Inflamable. Estudio del texts and poverty-stricken population. This project includes the
sufrimiento ambiental [Flammable. Study of environmental study of five cases nationwide.
11
suffering]. (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2008). Entrance to communities took place after authorization and
7
Michel Foucault. Saber y verdad [Knowledge and truth]. negotiation with indigenous leaders. Some of them declined to
(Madrid: La Piqueta, 1991). participate because of high levels of distrust towards ‘‘external
8Javier Auyero and Débora Swistun. Inflamable. Estudio del agents.’’ It is agreed with them that published material and in-
sufrimiento ambiental [Flammable. Study of environmental termediate reports that can be useful for the communities, will
suffering]. (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2008). be given to them. This is currently in phase of implementation.
SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL INEQUALITY AND WATER CRISIS 11

workers linked to the public sector, and 3) residents Thus, mining is the economic sector that contributed
without documented positions in organizations, with at most to Chile’s gross domestic product between 2004 and
least five years living in the territory. In total, 40 inter- 2011, representing 60% of exports and the highest sal-
views were conducted during July 2014 and June 2015, aries of the country, reaching US$2,133.17 However,
which were analyzed through a bottom-up content anal- economic activities linked to this area only constitute
ysis, with NVIVO software. 10% of total employment of the economically active
population. According to data from 2009 by the United
SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL INEQUALITIES Nations Development Programme (UNDP), median per
capita income for that year in one of the main mining
The unequal distribution of goods and environmental cities, Calama, wasn’t significantly higher than that of
risks has been emphasized for a long time by those who other cities in the country, with up to only 625.09 (dollars
work from the position of environmental justice, envi- per month): merely 28.70 dollars more than in the bor-
ronmental racism, and political ecology, particularly by ough of Cochamó, a town in the south of the country,
academics who have studied political ecology for the very far removed from the riches of mining. This slight
case of Latin America.12 For these, the persistence of difference is in sharp contrast with the 2.285 dollars less
colonial orders manifests as an unequal ecological ex- Calama has in relation with the borough of Las Condes,
change between the peripheries and metropolitan centers, located in the capital of Santiago, which has a median per
which causes a deepening of social inequalities and an capita income of 2.910 dollars per month. This data
exacerbation of power relations over the environment13 shows us that despite the importance of mining produc-
in the case of peripheral territories. tion, apparently these impressive figures haven’t brought
In the case of Latin America and Chile in particular, about a change in local incomes.
socio-environmental transformations brought about by In this sense, one of the main arguments in favor of the
mining cannot be separated from the colonial heritage location of these industries is that they generate a ‘‘vir-
that has articulated the systemic ‘‘dispossession’’ of in- tuous cycle’’ that inserts the local population in an active
digenous groups inside Latin American societies, through economic circuit thanks to the needs of these companies.
the strategic control of resources that belonged to or were In the case of the agricultural communities at study, until
used by these regimes and that over time have come to the 1970s agreements were signed with the large mining
belong to and be administered by the nation-state.14 In industries of Chuquicamata to buy the agricultural pro-
the case of Chile, though resources like water, soil, and duction of the communities to feed the miners. However,
subsoil became state property in the period from 1925 to subsequent events of contamination of the Loa River and
1973,15 from the latter onwards they were franchised, policies adopted later on by companies to allot feeding to
sold, or granted to privates, particularly in relation with large private concessionaires put an end to the deals with
the mining industry in north Chile. Both during the pe- mining companies. The costs of mining emplacement in
riod of state administration as today, the pattern docu- the area has not favored the creation of an alternative
mented for extractive industry is repeated: exploitation of source of income for families: thus the spatial concen-
mining resources happens in local spaces that suffer the tration of the mining industry has not resulted in an
environmental costs, but the benefits are transferred to amelioration of poverty in the area, on the contrary, it has
metropolitan areas through mechanisms like taxation.16 increased the migration dynamics from indigenous ter-
ritories to the large mining cities: according to data from
the census of 2002,18 82.8% of Atacama peoples live in
12
Enrique Leff. Racionalidad ambiental. La reapropiación urban areas, most of them in the city of Calama, which
social de la naturaleza [Environmental racionality. Social Re- has the worst indicators of poverty in the region.
appropriation of nature]. (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2004).
13
Joan Martinez-Alier. ‘‘Social Metabolism, Ecological Dis- THE LEGAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE WATER
tribution Conflicts, and Languages of Valuation,’’ Capitalism,
Nature Socialism 20 (2009): 58–87; Joan Martinez-Alier. CONFLICT IN ALTO LOA
‘‘Distribution Conflicts Ecological of Sustainability Indicators,’’
International Journal of Political Economy 34(2004): 13–30. This situation wouldn’t have been possible without an
14
Anthony Bebbington and Denise Humphreys Bebbington. adequate legal architecture that makes it possible to main-
‘‘Actores y Ambientalismos: Conflictos Socio Ambientales en
Perú’’ [Actors and environmentalisms: Socio environmental tain these unequal exchanges between the state and indig-
conflicts in Peru]. Íconos. Revista de Ciencias Sociales (Social enous peoples in the last decades, legitimizing them and
Studies Magazine) 35 (2009): 117–128. crystallizing the disadvantageous position of the Likan
15
This period is known as the developmental period, in which Antai/Atacama regarding the use of water. This section
there is political interest to strengthen the economic role of the analyses how certain legal mechanisms that are at the core
state and to develop the productive sector of the state. In this
state productive sector, one of the key axes is the mining of of a regime of inequality, have reinforced the position of
copper, with its main company: CODELCO Chile.
16Anthony Bebbington, Jeffrey Bury, Denise Humphreys
17
Bebbington, Jeannet Lingan, Juan Pablo Muñoz, and Martin Servicio Nacional de Geologı́a y Minerı́a. ‘‘Análisis de la
Scurrah. ‘‘Mining and Social Movements: Struggles Over Li- Minerı́a de Chile’’ (Analysis of Mining of Chile). Working
velihood and Rural Territorial Development in the Andes,’’ Paper (SERNAGEOMIN, 2012).
Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper 33 (University of 18Instituto Nacional de Estadı́sticas (INE) (National Institute
Manchester, 2008). of Statistics), Chilean Government.
12 CASTILLO GALLARDO

inequality of the local population through the superposition separation of property of land and surface and ground-
of three legal mechanisms, that in turn have caused a series water. Through this law, the state assigned the discoverer
of unforeseen effects in the identity of this peoples. of mineral deposits the faculty to inscribe it as concession
The first of these mechanisms is the Water Code. and property right, which implies that the owner of the
During the implementation of the so-called ‘‘structural surface must facilitate the installation of productive in-
adjustments’’—which took place in the middle of the frastructure and tailings. This legislation allowed the
dictatorial government19—the orientation of the Chilean great mining industry—almost the only one capable of
economy was modified from a developmental model to a undertaking explorations in the area—to register mining
liberal one, which sought to create specific ‘‘markets’’ of concessions; these affected the resources and indigenous
resources and services, through a deregulation and easing territories in a systemic manner.
of legal restrictions that, as was thought at the moment, The third legal mechanism at stake is at odds with the
hindered an efficient assignation of these through the other two, which causes overlapping of legal mecha-
concurrence of actors in the market. In this context, there nisms: the 19.253 Indigenous Law issued in 1993. This
was a modification of the legislation that regulated the law establishes that indigenous peoples have ownership
access, use, and property of water as a resource and it over the ancestral lands, water, resources, and territories
was made into private property. According to the new they have occupied and creates an organism to rectify
Code of Water—issued in 1981—water rights were historical pilferages of resources for indigenous econo-
separated from the property of land and could be freely mies: this was the National Indigenous Commission
bought, inherited, or sold. At the same time, the state was (Comisión Nacional Indı́gena CONADI). However,
limited in its power of regulation, and incentives were though this law was aimed at remedying aspects related
created so as to constitute an attractive space for private to the so-called ‘‘historical debt’’ of the state towards the
investment and speculation in a context of high scarcity indigenous peoples, as it didn’t have a retroactive effect,
due to the dry weather. During a first period, water rights the process went slowly and the attributions of CONADI
were given for free and permanently to private individ- in the restitution of rights were limited to solving the
uals and companies, which, until 2005, would be exempt problem not from a logic of restoration of territories and
from taxes and not bound to use this water for productive resources, but through buying back plots and water rights
activities. This allocation didn’t take their historical uses claimed by the communities from private individuals,
into consideration and the indigenous communities were with a very limited budget.
sorely afflicted, at a moment when they had no access to These three overlapped devices have marked a
the information circulating about the new conditions of gradual loss of control of communities of the rights over
property and use of water. This also included the property surface and groundwater, which has affected shep-
of groundwater: a great part of water rights were regis- herding and agriculture. Through legal modifications,
tered by the mining industry, which currently owns 95% the state has favored the development of the large
of groundwater rights.20 mining industry and water companies, which have come
A second regulation that comes into play is the Law of to control the largest part of water rights in an area of
Mining Concessions, issued in 1982, that allows the great scarcity. This has caused the exhaustion and
contamination of this resource. This situation shows the
way in which the state actively maintains and intensifies
19 unequal patterns of distribution of socially valuable
This period comprises the 17 years after the Military Coup
of 1973 that overthrew President Salvador Allende through a goods, to the detriment of the indigenous population
violent bombing of the presidential palace. During those years, that is already poverty-stricken. Likewise, the lack of
Chile was governed by a military dictatorship composed by the information, the networks of clients, and other phe-
high commands of the four branches of the army. The initial nomena have long stood in the way of a reaction by
program of this dictatorship regarding the national economy these peoples regarding this conflict, which gave rise to
was, in an initial stage, to paralyze and revert initiatives of
redistribution that had been taking place since 1925, but then situations of abuse like selling under pressure for low
soon adopted the main recommendations of the International prices, extraction of groundwater without the commu-
Monetary Fund called ‘‘Washington Consensus,’’ aimed at nities’ consent, tubing of rivers, contamination of the
radically changing the economic matrix towards a market Loa River, among other irregularities.21 On the other
economy. This situation made Chile into the first Latin Ameri-
can economy that changed its economy radically towards free hand and despite its limitations, the Indigenous Law
market and deregulation, through the enactment of a new con- gave the local indigenous communities of this study a
stitution and labor, legal, banking, property and educational
reforms, all of which are currently in force.
20
Source: Dirección General de Aguas, Ministerio de Obras
21
Públicas [General Direction of Water, Ministry of Public Francisco Molina. ‘‘Competing Rationalities in Water
Works], II Region of Antofagasta, 2009. Available in the official Conflict: Mining and the Indigenous Community in Chiu Chiu,
site of the Regional Government of Atacama, as of January 11, El Loa Province, Northern Chile,’’ Singapore Journal of Tro-
2015 at: <http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc= pical Geography 33 (2012): 93–107. Nancy Yañez and Raúl
s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url= Molina. La gran minerı́a y los derechos indı́genas en el norte de
https%3A%2F%2F2.zoppoz.workers.dev%3A443%2Fhttp%2Fwww.goreatacama.cl%2Fsysdataweb%2Fnotas Chile [The great mining industry and the indigenous rights in
%2Fficheros%2FPresentacion_Situacion_Antofagasta.ppt&ei= northern Chile]. (Santiago: LOM, 2008). Nancy Yañez and Raúl
JW7bVPHmL8KhNpHXg8AD&usg=AFQjCNEp7ye4Ltf-Ej6mv Molina. Las aguas indı́genas en Chile [Indigenous waters in
Ex3tv-zTy5kFg&bvm=bv.85761416,d.eXY>. Chile]. (Santiago: LOM, 2011).
SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL INEQUALITY AND WATER CRISIS 13

tool to revert, although minimally, the dispossession of communities in a context of unequal public visibility. As
waters and territories: for the first time, they had the Stewart26 points out, the persistence of horizontal
power to make claims in representation of peoples that inequalities—historical and persistent exclusion from
hadn’t had voice nor legal existence since the creation goods socially valued by groups that are confined by
of the national state: the indigenous community.22 For certain specific variables—increases the perception of
the first time, indigenous individuals became visible injustice and strengthens the frontiers between groups in
interlocutors and the law became one of the main, if not terms of identity, as can be seen in the case of Alto Loa.
the only, tool of protection against the expansion of the These phenomena have been part of an evolution that
mining industry.23 For this reason, the legal constitution has been marked by certain events that have defined the
of indigenous communities grew even among the peo- environmental suffering of the population and that have
ples in which this ethnic self-recognition had been in supplied a referential frame from which to construct their
decline for decades, revitalizing the indigenous move- narratives of belonging and identity:
ment in the area.
First event: Modification of the Water Code
ENVIRONMENTAL SUFFERING
The initial situation of vulnerability of the population
AND INTEGRATION OF IDENTITY
that inhabited the area marred the process of registering
IN ATACAMA/LIKAN ANTAI
water rights with a series of rumors spread—according to
the interviewees—by people that were foreign to the
Indigenous individuals are challenged in different
territory, lawyers, and public servants. Apparently, these
ways by the situation of water shortage and environ-
rumors made the communities register smaller volumes
mental degradation, as well as the situations of dispos-
than those really needed for farming, so as to avoid ex-
session of resources and environmental suffering derived
cessive payments.27 The contradictory/confusing infor-
from them. In this context, all actions of interpellation or
mation supplied by external agents in cases like these has
answer to expansion of the mining industry have had to
been documented by Auyero in similar cases as one of
traverse a complex process of discursive transformations
the expressions of the asymmetrical positions of the ac-
that have modified the diagnoses on environment, de-
tors, since the inhabitants in positions of vulnerability
velopment, and contamination.24 Together with this, in-
assume the information of those in higher positions is
digenous individuals have changed their understanding of
legitimate. Once the new inscriptions of rights were
themselves, their history, and their culture.
initiated, the co-proprietors slowly began to understand
In Chiu Chiu and Lasana these processes have been
what the consequences were of their previous confusions,
associated with the acknowledgment of the indigenous
as well as what the privatization of the resource entailed.
subject, which has been key for the enactment of the
With the shortage of water and the detour of important
Indigenous Law,25 one of the unexpected effects of the
branches of the Loa for mining, as is the case of the San
expansion of mining exploitation. In turn, this process
Pedro River, the inhabitants of the area saw themselves
has required the creation of a series of tools and elements
directly affected by a new situation. At this point, a new
of discourse on ethnicity, as well as a recovery of the
interpretation of the process of registration of waters
historic memory of the Likan Antai/Atacama people;
takes shape as ‘‘yet another scam against the indigenous
these are meaningful as strategies for protection of the
peoples.’’ This becomes the articulating axis of an in-
cipient political discourse that begins to link the situation
22
of dispossession of individuals who previously consid-
These indigenous communities, constituted according to the ered themselves as ‘‘farmers.’’ towards a construction of
law, in many cases don’t correspond to the historic indigenous
communities these peoples acknowledge as ancestral in the the concept of indigenous subject as axis of the conflict.
management of territories, as the requisites for their legal con-
stitution and legal personality were different than the ones tra- Second event: contamination of the Loa River
ditionally used by each indigenous peoples in the national
territory, so as to favor the cases in which indigenous individuals The agricultural activity that survived after the conflict
had lost territorial control through fraudulent sales, usurpation, over the alienation of water rights was seriously affected
and other situations. by the contamination of the Loa River with lead, xan-
23
Thanks to the tools of the indigenous laws, it was possible to
see cases like the one of Toconce in the Loa river basin, in which thate, and arsenic waste in several documented events—
the Supreme Court recognized in 2004 the preexistent indige-
nous property of waters over previous rights of third parties.
24 26
Anthony Bebbington, Jeffrey Bury, Denise Humphreys Frances Stewart. ‘‘¿Por qué persisten las desigualdades de
Bebbington, Jeannet Lingan, Juan Pablo Muñoz, and Martin grupo? Las trampas de la desigualdad horizontal’’ [Why do
Scurrah. ‘‘Mining and Social Movements: Struggles Over Li- group inequalities still exist? The traps of horizontal inequality].
velihood and Rural Territorial Development in the Andes,’’ In Teorı́a Económica y Desigualdad Social, Exclusion, Desi-
Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper 33 (University of gualdad y Democracia [Economic theory and social inequality,
Manchester, 2008). exclusion, inequality and democracy]. F. Jimenez ed. (Lima:
25
Manuel Prieto. ‘‘Privatizing Water and Articulating In- Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2010).
27
digeneity: The Chilean Water Reforms and the Atacameño Manuel Prieto. ‘‘Privatizing Water and Articulating In-
People (Likan Antai)’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, digeneity: The Chilean Water Reforms and the Atacameño
2014); Nancy Yañez and Raúl Molina. Las aguas indı́genas en People (Likan Antai)’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona,
Chile [Indigenous waters in Chile]. (Santiago: LOM, 2011). 2014).
14 CASTILLO GALLARDO

though not officially recognized—between 1997 and CONCLUSIONS

2000. Although there never was an official acknowl-
edgment of these facts, the inhabitants of the basin at- The case in question brings us to the relation between
tribute the lack of animals and fish in the river, the death conflict over water, the liberal legal architecture on wa-
of plantations, and deaths en masse of their cattle to it. ter/mining rights, and the situation of poverty of the
At the moment, we can see a second source of environ- Atacama Likan Antai peoples, with particular emphasis
mental suffering and event of the conflict, traversed by the on how these phenomena have modified the integration
degradation of the environment and the profound economic of the identity of the inhabitants of the Loa river basin. It
impact this had in the communities of the Loa River, that has allowed us to explore the complex processes that lie
motivated a change in economic activity for shepherds, behind the position of indigenous peoples in a context of
displacement of the inhabitants of the higher areas of the inequality—as is the case in Chile—that articulates dif-
basin and economic migration by a large part of the popu- ferent social dimensions in the reproduction of these
lation to the town of Calama. To these economic impacts, unequal positions.
which caused a corresponding dose of social and emotional Among these dimensions, the legal dimension of the
impact in the inhabitants, one can add the unfortunate in- regime of inequality is in a privileged position: not only
tervention of the state apparatus in an extremely unstable does it have a key role in the situation of poverty and
context, the constant denial of contamination by mining vulnerability of the Likan Antai peoples in this case
companies and the loss of legal actions of indigenous study, but the overlapping of devices it contains has also
communities because of this. At this point, the perception of generated an interstitial space from which these peoples
abuse is intensified, as is the diagnosis, through the series of have been able to strengthen its strategies of protection
legal actions taken from these facts, that the indigenous during the different moments of the conflict with the
community constituted by law is the main form of protection mining industry. These strategies, that are interwoven
from vulnerability of communities. with the re-articulation of identity around ethnic com-
ponents, shows the complexity of elements that operate
Third event: The Talabres tailing in these dynamics, which leads us to important questions
to explore in the future.
In addition to the conflict over contamination and
water use in the area, the most recent source of envi- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ronmental degradation is related to the proximity of the
Talabres tailing, a place where the mining waste of Research Project FONDECYT No. 11140008, ‘‘Desi-
Chuquicamata is concentrated. Both towns are subject to gualdades socioecológicas: miradas cualitativas sobre su-
high levels of contamination from the airborne dust that frimiento ambiental.’’ Also supported by Interdisciplinary
has affected the quality of the soils. In 2012 the munic- Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Studies-ICIIS,
ipality took legal action, which was dismissed for lack of grant: CONICYT/FONDAP/15110006.
scientific studies to endorse their negative effects. Here,
one can see the role of ‘‘expert’’ and ‘‘knowledge’’—as AUTHOR DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
understood by Foucault28—in the validation of the voices
of the actors of the conflict. Although local authorities The author has no conflicts of interest or financial ties
and inhabitants acknowledge the effects of the tailing, the to disclose.
lack of ‘‘scientific proof’’ of this knowledge puts them in
a place of invisibility before the central authority. Ig-
noring those effects known by the inhabitants, at the
moment the expansion of the Talabre tailing is being Address correspondence to:
submitted to indigenous opinion and in several commu- Mayarı́ Castillo Gallardo
nities this enlargement has already been accepted. This Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano
relates to another phenomenon that gives shape to envi- Escuela de Antropologı́a
ronmental suffering: the dismantling of organizations by Condell 506
networks of clients and the division of leaders, organized Providencia
‘‘disinformation,’’ and uncertainty. Although the indig- Santiago de Chile 7500875
enous subject is consolidated as an actor, there is a Chile
fragmentation inside communities because of the differ-
ent interventions in the territory. E-mail: [email protected]

28
Michel Foucault. Saber y verdad [Knowledge and truth].
(Madrid: La Piqueta, 1991).