Production of subterranean resources in the Atacama Desert: 19th and early 20th century mining/water extraction in The Taltal district, northern Chile

The Production of Empty Space and Deserts in the South-Central Andean Highlands

“…For González [78], the Atacama Desert was presented in opposition to the humid central and southern areas of Chile. The natural and geographical characteristics and attributes of the Atacama Desert were not emphasized, although a large percentage of the country's geological and mineral wealth was located in the territory, as evidenced by the rise of the saltpeter industry between 1880 and 1930 and the subsequent boom in copper mining (see also [30]). González highlights the stereotyped image of the area that was presented in popular texts, such as Baedeker's Travel Guide for the Republic of Chile (1910) or Twentieth Century Impressions of Chile (1915).…”

“…While various researchers have explored representations of Chile's Andes Mountains [25][26][27], their primary focus has typically centered on the country's central and southern regions. The northern zone, on the other hand, has garnered considerable attention from geocultural, anthropological, archaeological, historiographical, and international relations perspectives [28,29], as well as through the lenses of geohistorical [30] and socioenvironmental studies [31,32].…”

Urbanizando el despoblado: patrones de asentamiento y poblamiento en el desierto de Atacama. Taltal, 1870-1950

“…La autoridad recalcó que el problema en los campamentos era la carencia de desagües, las calles angostas, el negativo impacto que de ello se derivaba, a saber, suciedad, malos olores "y emanaciones de las aguas servidas que arrojan a ellas en las mañanas, en algunas oficinas el aire de los campamentos era insoportable y no es natural que esa situación se acepte, confiados en que el sol y el viento se encargan pronto de la desinfección" 52 . 49 Para el tema del agua en la región consultar: Méndez, Manuel;Prieto, Manuel;Godoy, Milton. 2020 Los poblados ligados o establecidos por la extracción salitrera siguieron un derrotero común e inexorable, marcado por la demanda internacional de este commoditie.…”

Political geography 1: Extractions

“…Recent analyses draw upon Deleuze and Guattari's (1988) assemblage theory, critical political ecology, and human and more-than-human (or nonhuman) geographies (Leifsen, 2020;Murton and Lord, 2020;Rogelja, 2020;Squire and Dodds, 2020). Some scholars also situate their analyses within a historical framework to better understand the entangled processes of resource extractions that have benefited states and increased wealth accumulation for the few at the expense of many local communities (Mendez et al, 2020). Analyses of resource nationalism suggest a redefining and relegitimization of neoliberal resource extraction as a strategy of governance (Poncian, 2019).…”