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Paper short abstract

Southern Chile, currently imagined as a climate refuge due to its abundant water resources, paradoxically faces historic water shortages exacerbated by a mega-drought. I explore how water and infrastructure are reshaping local politics and territorial disputes among old and new social actors.

Paper long abstract

Southern Chile has historically been imagined as a land of abundant water and a potential climate refuge, attracting migrants from the country's semi-arid regions who settle in rural areas, often in irregular conditions and in the absence of state presence. However, the daily experience of the inhabitants reveals a paradox: despite the apparent abundance, there is a persistent historical shortage of water for human use. Since 2010, the mega-drought affecting Chile has intensified this contradiction, accelerating the trend toward a drier climate. The centrality of water to life and its depletion, together with infrastructural difficulties in accessing it, have forced unexpected alliances between old and new inhabitants, locals and outsiders, rich and poor, indigenous and non-indigenous. In these encounters, the organization of space is disputed and local political life is reconfigured. This paper situates itself at the intersection of water-infrastructure-humans, addressing the tensions between the presence and absence of water in a climate change context that paradoxically enhances the area as a refuge. Through ethnography that included interviews, observation of organizational instances, and walks along water flows and infrastructure networks, I address the role of water as a matter and of infrastructure in local politics. I ask how different actors imagine the presence and absence of water, and what effects these imaginations have on the dynamics of territorial organization and patterns of inclusion/exclusion from water supply.