From Cooperation to Confrontation: The Mapuche Movement and Its Political Impact, 1990–2014

Abstract

This chapter traces the path from cooperation to conflict followed by the Mapuche movement since the democratic transition. It shows that during the first years of democracy, cooperation with the center-left political parties and the governmental authorities was the predominant strategy, leading to some important institutional results. However, collective rights were not recognized, and serious limitations of the new institutional frame to protect indigenous rights became quickly evident. Consequently, an autonomous and more radical strand progressively overshadowed the cooperative sectors. The chapter argues that regardless of the employment of cooperative or confrontational strategies, the combination of demands that affect high-profile issues and low levels of internal and external resources explains the Mapuche movement’s difficulty to obtain a significant impact in terms of advancing collective rights.

I am very grateful to Marisa von Bülow and Sofía Donoso for all their insightful comments on this chapter. Research discussed in this publication has been supported by the project RS130002 of the Iniciativa Científica Milenio of the Ministerio de Economía, Fomento y Turismo and the Centro de Estudios de Conflicto y Cohesión Social (COES), CONICYT/FONDAP/15130009.