Geographic Imaginaries in Dispute in Northern Patagonia: Tourism, Environmental Conservation, and Indigenous Territorial Rights in Quinquén, Chile

Abstract

In this chapter, we pose that tourism participates in a process of reterritorialization, in dialogue with past and present dynamics of deterritorialization, and arises from the actions of diverse powers that constrain Indigenous agency. We discuss tourism both as a window that reveals the tensions between environmentalconservation and Indigenous territorial rights and as a socio-political process that could resolve them. Methodologically, this work reflects extensive bibliographical review, document analysis, and fieldwork that has been conducted through numerous periodic stays in Quinquén and other Pewenche communities. First, we explore a theoretical perspective of the production of geographical imaginaries and its applications in Northern Patagonia. Next, we analyze the dual processes of exploitation/protection of the Araucaria, contextualizing them within the framework of the territorial dispossession that affected the Pewenche in the upper basin of the Bío-Bío River, an area of Chile located in the mountainous communes of Lonquimay, in the Araucanía Region, and Alto Bío-Bío, in the Bío-Bío Region, where 54% and 83% of the population identify themselves as Pewenche, respectively. This chapter continues with consideration of the Quinquén territory of northern Chilean Patagonia, where the Pewenche struggle for the Araucaria tree has resulted in a tourism development project.