Collective Actions Repertories and Politicization of the Agricultural, Forest, and Transport Business in the Araucanía. Chile 2013-2016

Abstract

In this research, I seek to understand the role that the forest and agricultural business have played in the politicization and rural violence unleashed in the Araucanía between 2013 and 2016. I aim to close a gap in the research about the “Mapuche conflict”, which has been understood primarily from the perspective of the Chilean state or the Mapuche people, by analysing landowners and forest companies’ role in the conflict. I claim that the repertoire of associative practices and collective actions carried out by business associations and investors represent ways of politicization distinctive of social movements such as the demonstrations organized by truck drivers or organizations such as “Peace for the Araucanía”. I argue that the active role of union associations adds new characteristics to the phenomenon of rural violence within the unfinished Mapuche conflict since the Luchsinger-Mackay case.