The industrial heritage of two sacrifice zones and the geopolitics of memory in Northern Chile. The cases of Gatico and Ollagüe

ABSTRACT

The Antofagasta region, now part of northern Chile, belonged to Bolivia until the so-called War of the Pacific (1879–1883). Since the end of the nineteenth century, with the irruption of foreign and national capitals, the area witnessed intense industrialisation and mining expansion. Industrial mining modified local communities’ livelihoods, social practices, landscapes, and ecologies. Gatico (coast) and Ollagüe (highlands) were two mining centres that agglutinated a significant migrant workforce to produce copper and sulphur, respectively. Now dismantled, both peripheric extractive spaces form an ‘industrial topology’ structured outside the national margins. Abandoned industrial infrastructures and the chemical debris of mining activities reconfigure the current geopolitics of memory among local communities. Tensions and dissonances emerge from the touristic and economic ‘museumification’ of these sacrifice zones and their industrial ruins.

KEYWORDS:

• Industrial heritage
• mining history
• capitalism
• sacrifice zones
• Atacama desert

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Tiziana Gallo, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Quotes in languages other than English have been translated by the authors.

2. Corporate social responsibility, or socially responsible investment, is defined as the active and voluntary contribution to social, economic, and environmental improvement by companies, generally with the aim of improving their competitive situation and adding value (Solano 2008). There is no doubt that companies seek to improve their image through clientelism, assistance, a kind of self-interested gift, in order to co-opt those affected by the production processes (see, for example, the case of Rio Tinto in Cochrane 2017).

3. El Abra, ‘Comunidad de Ollagüe recibió documental e investigación del azufre gracias al fondo patrimonial de El Abra’, December 23, 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.elabra.cl/comunidad-de-ollague-recibio-documental-e-investigacion-del-azufre-gracias-a-fondo-patrimonial-de-el-abra.

4. Community is a difficult concept. We agree with Smith and Waterton that ‘the term has become ambiguous and ambivalent, and can therefore be difficult to use in any meaningful way’ (Smith and Waterton 2009, 23–24). Consequently, we understand community not as an abstract, homogeneous, and solely geographically localised group. On the contrary, it is a politically charged notion that implies groups’ negotiations and contestations of often dissonant political and social interests (Smith and Waterton 2009).

5. In Ollagüe, fifteen interviews were conducted between 2015 and 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Fieldwork resumed in 2022 and is ongoing. It consists of new archaeological surveys of agropastoral and industrial sites, of archival documentation and interviews. Interviews are primarily conducted among former workers and inhabitants of industrial sites living today in Ollagüe and neighbouring Chilean and Bolivian localities (Calama, Antofagasta, Uyuni, San Cristóbal). In the case of Gatico and Tocopilla, ethnographic work coincided with the performative act carried out by the 100% Heritage Group on February 1, 2009. In these localities’ abandoned industrial facilities, we conducted unstructured interviews with the leaders and participants of the Group.

6. The so-called War of the Pacific or Saltpeter War (1879–1883) was a military conflict between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, resulting in the annexation by the Chilean state of large portions of territory: the Arica y Parinacota and Tarapacá regions, formerly part of Peru, and the Antofagasta region, formerly part of Bolivia.

7. ‘Chilenisation’ was a politically driven device that sought to homogenise and culturally integrate the Atacama territory (cultural, symbolic, military) by rendering the Bolivian presence invisible (Galaz-Mandakovic and Rivera 2020).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT, ANID Chile) [grant number 11180932 and 11220113] and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Damir Galaz-Mandakovic

Damir Galaz-Mandakovic is a historian and received his PhD in Anthropology at the Universidad Católica del Norte (Chile) and his PhD in History at the Université Rennes 2 (France). His research focuses on the social history of mining and modernity in the Atacama Desert (Chile) and southwestern Bolivia. He recently published ‘Movimientos, tensiones y luces. Historias tocopillanas’ (Ediciones Bahia Algodonales, Tocopilla, 2019) and ‘Memorias de la ciudad de Gatico. Minería y Sociedad. 1832-1940’ (Pampa Negra Ediciones, Antofagasta, 2020).

Francisco Rivera

Francisco Rivera is a historical archaeologist and received his PhD in Anthropology at the University of Montreal (Canada). His research interests are the anthropology of mining, industrial heritage, the archaeology of the contemporary past, and the historical archaeology of capitalism in the Atacama Desert (Chile) and Quebec’s Lower North Shore (Canada). He is the director of the Alto Cielo Archaeological Project, and he recently co-edited the book ‘El perfume del diablo: azufre, memoria y materialidades en el Alto Cielo (Ollagüe, s. XX)’ (RIL Editores, Santiago, 2020).