Assessing the industrial past in the highlands of northern Chile

ABSTRACT

The Alto Cielo Archaeological Project is an interdisciplinary research project carried out between 2015 and 2019 in Ollagüe, an indigenous community located in the highlands of northern Chile. In this article, we explore the community members’ perceptions towards the recent past, assessing the temporality of industrial sites associated with sulphur mining in Ollagüe during the twentieth century. This article presents a preliminary collaborative approach based on consultation and research design, positing industrial ruins as a mechanism that could de-monopolize interpretations associated with the recent past of Ollagüe.

KEYWORDS:

• Industrial heritage
• sulphur mining
• temporality
• collaboration
• Ollagüe
• Chile

Acknowledgements

An early version of this paper was presented at the 2018 SHA Annual Conference in New Orleans. We thank Kaeleigh Herstad and Daniel Trepal for their organization of the symposium and for their reviews. We are grateful to Carmen Achu Colque, Eugenio González and the Quechua community of Ollagüe for their support to this research, Tiziana Gallo and the anonymous reviewers for their precious insights and commentaries.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Francisco Rivera is an archaeologist, currently a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Montreal, Canada. He is a consultant for the firm SurAndino Estudios Arqueológicos y Patrimoniales Ltda and received several grants for research projects in the north of Chile. His research focusses on the historical archaeology of capitalism and the anthropology of industrial mining. He is the author and co-author of articles and books such as El Mineral de Caracoles. Arqueología e historia de un distrito minero de la Región de Antofagasta (1870–1989) (Fondart, 2008) and coeditor of El Perfume del Diablo: Azufre, Memoria y Materialidades en el Alto Cielo (Ollagüe, s. XX) (RIL Editores, 2020, in press).

Paula González is an archaeologist, social anthropologist and independent researcher. She has carried out several archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork in indigenous communities in northern Chile, highlighting the practical link between the two disciplines and the modern processes of memory construction through the material world. She is coeditor of El Perfume del Diablo: Azufre, Memoria y Materialidades en el Alto Cielo (Ollagüe, s. XX) (RIL Editores, 2020, in press).

Rodrigo Lorca is an archaeologist and a consultant for the firm SurAndino Estudios Arqueológicos y Patrimoniales Ltda. He has worked in various research projects in the north of Chile, specializing in pre-Columbian archaeology, historical archaeology of urban contexts, and the analysis of historical material culture. He is the author and coauthor of articles and books, including El Mineral de Caracoles. Arqueología e historia de un distrito minero de la Región de Antofagasta (1870–1989) (Fondart, 2008) and coeditor of El Perfume del Diablo: Azufre, Memoria y Materialidades en el Alto Cielo (Ollagüe, s. XX) (RIL Editores, 2020, in press).

Wilfredo Faundes is an archaeologist and independent researcher. He has worked in several research projects and CRM as excavation and survey assistant, primarily in northern Chile. He has also carried out experimental archaeology and didactic workshops for children and youths in Chile and Argentina and taught lithic classes in the archaeology program at Universidad de Tarapacá. He is currently working on developing experimental approaches to lithic technology, a research project led by Dr. Calogero Santoro.

Notes

1 Available here: https://www.leychile.cl/Navegar?idNorma=28892.

2 All interviews and citation were translated by the authors.

3 Resinous moss plant, emerald green in colour, used mainly as fuel in mining smelting furnaces.

4 The Executive Order 2868, of 21 September 1979, establishes the new territorial division of the country, and with it also that of the municipality of Ollagüe. The Executive Order 1204, of 3 November 1980, indicates the limits of the Antofagasta region. The Law 20554, of 13 January 2012, creates the local police court in Ollagüe.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by FONDART (Fondo Nacional para el Desarrollo Cultural y las Artes, Chile, Convocatoria 2017, Folio #400081) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Vanier CGS).