Paper short abstract:

Local state practices oriented to indigenous peoples in Chile are analyzed in a current context of the emergence of the discourse of corruption at the national level. State practices of indigenous politics and their agents, in this new context, have new readings from this discourse of corruption.

Paper long abstract:

Based on an ethnographic work in the Araucanía Region, in the southern of Chile, oriented to the state practices of public policies for the indigenous population, the perspective of corruption in this local space is analyzed.

Several state practices are identified where three key actors emerge as articulators of this policy: officials (indigenous and non-indigenous), indigenous leaders and consultants. These will be the articulators and negotiators of indigenous politics in the local space, having an increasingly important role as democracy is established since 1990, in a context of agreed political transition and a neoliberal model.

At present, in Chile the speech of corruption breaks out because in the last years the management of economic resources by politicians and officials - of diverse tendencies, levels and public sectors - has revealed corrupt practices institutionalized and Installed "corruption" as a public discourse. This has generated an openness to this issue, which bursts and relativizes the vision of a non-corrupt country at various levels of society. This generates that they begin to name accepted and daily practices of public action under the principle of corruption. Considering this context, we analyze practices of indigenous politics that can contribute to analyze local views and forms of this discourse of corruption.