Mapuche Political Dissent in the Context of Neoliberal Governance: The Recuperation of Ancestral Land as a Process of Indigenous Emancipation in Arauco Province, Chile

After the return of democracy in Chile in 1990, the State launched a land restitution plan for indigenous communities and a series of development programmes targeting them, both of which were driven by a neoliberal-multicultural logic of national integration. However, in the middle of the 1990s, several Mapuche groups radicalized their claims, aiming for political autonomy and the expulsion of big capitalist enterprises (especially agroforestry) from the Wallmapu territory. From then till current times, they have resorted to two main strategies of land recuperation: on the one hand, illegal land occupations, coupled with sabotage on the agroforestry infrastructure, and a series of performances to make their political claims visible; and on the other hand, applying to the above-mentioned programmes implemented by the State apparatus. Both ways are performed by these groups according to their own normative system which stands in opposition to the economistic based logic of late capitalism, and through their cultural complex (comprised of language, authorities, and a series of ceremonies and socio-political protocols). In response, the State has reacted in a highly violent way, repressing the segments of the indigenous population that challenge the establishment as dangerous for the Chilean nation.