Paper Short Abstract:

In northern Chile, industrial sulfur mining played a crucial role in the State’s sovereignty and economic development projects. The Aucanquilcha volcano, known as the Rebel in the Ollagüe community's cosmogony, is a non-human agent affecting mining conditions and exploitation. Instead of approaching industrial expansion from an anthropocentric standpoint, I suggest adopting the volcano's perspective to understand the closure of mining projects as resulting from its rebellion against domestication.

Paper Abstract:

In the Quechua community of Ollagüe, in northern Chile, sulfur mining expansion played a crucial role in the utopian economic development project and State sovereignty. However, it also caused profound transformations in the landscape and the local Indigenous community. The Aucanquilcha volcano, known as the Rebel in the community's cosmogony, is a natural living entity, a non-human agent affecting mining conditions and exploitation. Mining acted as a control mechanism of a frontier extractive territory and a form of domestication of the volcanic space. Combining an archaeological, ethnographic, and historical approach, I explore the mining camps of Ollagüe and the deep history of its socio-economic changes through what Jane Bennett calls "vibrant matter." I suggest understanding the history of capitalist expansion from the perspective of the volcano and its rebellion against its domestication, instead of from the anthropocentric triumph of its exploitation. This perspective offers a novel understanding of Ollagüe's cultural landscapes and extractive industries' impacts. Ollagüe's abandoned industrial ruins illustrate the failure to tame the Aucanquilcha volcano, the Rebel.