Dr Katy Jenkins’ post during her current research trip to Chile
At the beginning of the week I found myself being briefed on the procedures for evacuation in case of earthquake, and the route out of town in case of a tsunami, and today I find that our trip into the mountains tomorrow requires high altitude medication and our own personal supplies of oxygen – either my Chilean colleagues are exceptionally cautious or else I have taken on more than I bargained for in terms of the reasonable risks of conducting fieldwork in Latin America! Despite these slightly worrying elements of the trip, the opportunity to spend two and a half weeks in Chile, conducting research, presenting at a conference, and meeting Chilean colleagues in three different cities, is definitely one of the perks of the job!
I began my trip in Santiago, at the first Latin American Conference on Political Ecology [http://congresoecologiapolitica.uchilefau.cl] at the Universidad de Chile, hosted by the ENTITLE network [http://www.politicalecology.eu]. The theme of the conference was ‘New Latin American Foci and Problems: post-neoliberalism, neo-extractivism, and public policy’, and it was great to be at a conference dominated by young, enthusiastic Latin American scholars. A wide range of papers analysed the interactions between nature and society, and the distinct power relations that such interactions entail, in relation to natural resource extraction in diverse contexts across Latin America and the Caribbean, with keynote speeches from Prof Tom Perreault and Prof Enrique Leff, amongst others. The conference also organised several fieldtrips, and I went on a tour of parks and urban spaces in central Santiago, led by Dr Yasna Contreras, who gave us a fascinating insight into the changing nature of public space in Santiago, before, during, and after the Pinochet dictatorship.
In between conference papers, I had the opportunity to see a little bit of the city. It was incredibly sobering to stand outside the Palacio de la Moneda, close to the spot from where President Salvador Allende was deposed by the military junta of Augusto Pinochet in 1973. And then to La Chascona [ http://www.neruda.uchile.cl/chascona.html] one of the homes of Pablo Neruda, Chile’s most famous poet. His house provides a fascinating window into his life and works. Neruda died a couple of days after the military coup, and his death was mourned at La Chascona even though it had been ransacked during the coup; his funeral was said to be one of the first public acts of resistance against the dictatorship, which lasted until 1990, and profoundly affected the country’s development.
From Santiago, to Iquique in the North of Chile, with my Chilean colleague Dr Hugo Romero Toledo from COES, the Centre for Conflict and Social Cohesion Studies [http://coes.cl/nuestro-centro/coes/]. In Iquique, and in Arica, further North close to the Peruvian border, we are conducting research with indigenous Quechua and Aymara women leaders, on the issues around large scale mining in the region – a massive source of Chile’s wealth. It is fascinating talking to the women from indigenous communities, and beginning to understand what they see as the key issues around water usage, air and water contamination, distribution of resources, and the wider benefits and negative impacts that the mining industry brings. Iquique and Arica are both prone to earthquakes and, being by the sea, to tsunamis too… though hopefully not this week!
Iquique is a fascinating place, on the edge of the Atacama Desert. It first rose to prominence with the nitrate boom of the late 1800s, which brought enormous wealth to the region. The salitreras, mining towns in the desert, are now abandoned, but the vestiges of the era can be seen in Iquique’s elegant nineteenth century plaza and surrounding buildings. The once grand theatre, now abandoned for many years but open to wander round, provides a glimpse of what life must have been like at the height of the nitrate boom. Iquique is now in the midst of a second mining ‘boom’ and its fading colonial architecture contrasts sharply with the gleaming skyscrapers springing up along the beachfront on the back of this latest boom, and the town as a somewhat ‘wild west’ feel to it, particularly after dark. Further up the coast, mining is yet to come to Arica in the same way, and such extremes of inequality are much less evident as we walk around the town.
Tomorrow we head up into the mountains, to the Aymara community of Putre. It is the Day of the Dead on Saturday (1st November) and many indigenous people who live and work in the towns and cities, return to their communities to participate in the festivities. So this will be a great opportunity to visit the indigenous villages of the altiplano, before giving a seminar at the Universidad de Tarapaca back in Arica on Monday, and then heading back to Santiago for a couple more days of work.