Los conflictos etnoambientales de “Pampa Colorada” y “El Tatio” en el salar de Atacama, norte de Chile. Procesos étnicos en un contexto minero y turístico transnacional

Abstract

En el segundo lustro del 2000, las poblaciones indígenas del salar de Atacama (norte de Chile) fueron protagonistas de dos emblemáticos conflictos conocidos como “Pampa Colorada” y “la Defensa del Tatio”. Analizamos en este artículo las relaciones entre los procesos étnicos de los años noventa experimentados en el salar y las economías transnacionales de enclave, como la minería y el turismo, que ingresaron en ese mismo período a esta región, producto de un cambio en el marco jurídico y legal impuesto durante el régimen militar. Nos aproximamos a la complejidad socioétnica del salar desde una perspectiva histórica y antropológica con el fin de etnografiar las formas hegemónicas y resistidas de una globalización transnacional, la cual –y ésa es nuestra tesis central– proviene de las presiones por constituir y reivindicar simultáneamente al salar de Atacama como territorio indígena, minero y turístico.

During the second half of the 2000s, indigenous populations of the Salar de Atacama (Northern Chile) played a main role fighting in two significant environmental conflicts known as "Pampa Colorada" and "The Tatio Defense". Both struggles erupted after a decade of multicultural and patrimonial public policies, strategies that run parallel to the enactment process of indigenous and environmental laws during Post-dictatorship Chile. Taking into account these historical events, this paper analyses the relationships amidst ethnic processes experienced by the Salar during the 90s and transnational economies embedded in a complex phenomena of production such as mining and tourism. These production processes were installed there as a consequence of changes within the legal framework during the military regime. From historical and anthropological perspectives, the author of this paper seeks a different approach to understand the social and ethnic complexity of the Salar, doing ethnography of hegemonic and resistance forces which compose a significant part of the transnational globalization. The main thesis of this paper is to reveal the pressure struggles between agenda and structure with the purpose of establishing mechanisms to vindicate the Salar de Atacama as an indigenous and mining/tourist territory at the same time.