Mining, Urban Growth, and Agrarian Changes in the Atacama Desert: The Case of the Calama Oasis in Northern Chile

Matías Calderón-Seguel, Manuel Prieto, Oliver Meseguer-Ruiz, Freddy Viñales, Paulina Hidalgo and Elías Esper
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Matías Calderón-Seguel: Departamento de Ciencias Históricas y Geográficas, Facultad de Educación y Humanidades, Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica 1010069, Chile
Manuel Prieto: Departamento de Ciencias Históricas y Geográficas, Facultad de Educación y Humanidades, Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica 1010069, Chile
Oliver Meseguer-Ruiz: Departamento de Ciencias Históricas y Geográficas, Facultad de Educación y Humanidades, Universidad de Tarapacá, Iquique 1101783, Chile
Freddy Viñales: Instituto de Arqueología y Antropología, Universidad Católica del Norte, San Pedro de Atacama 1410000, Chile
Paulina Hidalgo: Departamento de Antropología, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Chile, Ñuñoa 7800284, Chile
Elías Esper: Grupo de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales y Economía, Santiago 8330370, Chile

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: Since the mid-twentieth century, Latin American rural territories have undergone significant transformations. One of the leading causes is the expansion of large-scale operations that exploit natural resources for world market exportation with low processing. In this paper, we study the changes in agricultural activities, livestock, and land use in the Calama oasis (the Atacama Desert, northern Chile) in relation to the growth of large-scale copper mining and other chained processes (urbanization and increased demand for water resources); based on a mixed methodology combining descriptive statistics, archival and bibliographic review, ethnography, and spatial analysis. We present the results through a historical reconstruction of the analyzed dimensions and their relationships, accounting for contradictory dynamics in time and space. We identify how mining and urban growth promote some agricultural and livestock activities under certain economic and political conditions, while in other contexts, these activities have been severely weakened, seeing increasing urbanization of rural land, rural-urban pluriactivity, and a growing deagrarianization.

Keywords: extractivism; capitalist periphery; rurality; urbanization; rural-urban pluriactivity; deagrarianization; depeasantization; rural proletarianization; south-central Andes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:11:p:1262-:d:682851

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