Paper short abstract:

Hydropower plant projects in Chile are located in areas claimed by Indigenous people. This restricts land ownership changes due to particular land protection. To ensure access to resources large corporations are acquiring mining concessions. How do Mapuche react to this "undermining" of their land?

Paper long abstract:

Political ecology deals with questions of distribution, control and use of land and resources with the aim of analysing the power relations behind them (Swyngedouw 2011, 2014). As part of its efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, Chile is increasingly focusing on renewable energies, including hydropower. A large number of hydropower projects under construction and in the planning stage are located in the southern Andes and in areas inhabited by Indigenous people, especially the Mapuche. Often, energy projects of national interest require changes in land ownership. But Indigenous land ownership in Chile is particularly protected and cannot be sold or bought. For this reason, and in order to avoid conflicts regarding the development of their projects, such as the laying of the pipes to transport the water to the turbines, large corporations in these areas are increasingly acquiring mining concessions that give them access to underground resources without coming into conflict with indigenous land rights, creating new global power imbalances. How do the Mapuche deal with these developments? How do the leaders articulate their interests in the face of the fact that their land is being virtually "undermined" by global and nationally taken decisions? The panel's contribution is intended to explore these questions and thus contribute to the extent to which fissured rules and rights of differentiated access and control of land and resources further strengthen the position of globally active economic actors while weakening that of local actors.