Paper short abstract:

The presentation will historically and ethnographically analyse how Chilean arrieros from northern Patagonia defies the spatial rules of the nation, maintaining cross-border social relationships and practicing alternative forms of territoriality.

Paper long abstract:

Cattle driving is a spatial practice of “travelling-in-dwelling” that has important economical and ritual meanings for Andean peasant’s communities in the Chilean northern Patagonia. It belongs to what is known as gaucho culture. These communities pre-existed the establishment of the border between Argentina and Chile, which was traced in 1902 to regulate the conflicts between the two new-born national states, both interested in expanding their sovereignty. Patagonia was discursively constructed as a wild yet resourceful frontier, where pioneers could contribute to the “manifest destiny” of their nation, bringing civilization as far as Tierra del Fuego. Through this colonization process, the Chilean state imposed a north/south vertical axis that became the hegemonic spatial order of the nation and silenced east/west social relations, historically connecting both sides of the Andes following mountain pathways and rivers’ basins.

The aim of this presentation is to show how cattle drivers, or arrieros, defies the spatial rules of the nation, maintaining cross-border social relationships and practicing alternative forms of territoriality. First, I will trace their genealogy back to the historical figures of the Chilean roto-caminante: wandering horsemen that since colonial times challenged the hacienda order, living off petty crimes, robbery and occasional wage labour. Then I will dig into the ethnographic case of the cattle-driving journey, highlighting the ways it unfolds a deeply territorialized yet flexible cross-border social order, one that is based on ecological micro-practices and at the same time has to mediate with tourism and extractivism in a “post-frontier” context.