Geopolitics and Nationality in Chilean Foreign Policy Relating to Border Regions

International Practices In Latin America: Geopolitical-Neoliberal Dominance And The Decolonial Alternative

The international practices of Latin American states in the twentieth-century, which were strongly shaped by geopolitical considerations and designed to serve the demands of transnational capital (Ortiz, 2020), have, among other consequences, led to national borders and their adjacent areas being perceived as valuable, and therefore, conflictive (Serje, 2017). As a result the state finds it difficult to assert its presence when faced with a revisionist neighbor, that is, one that periodically called into question agreed-upon territorial limits. In addition, in many cases, internal policies since the nascent postcolonial states of the nineteenth century have aimed to marginalize and/or homogenize the dynamics that occur in these regions (Serje, 2012). The Latin American state-centric “order” was built in accordance with the principles of uti possidetis de jure and uti possidetis de facto, ¹ suffering the consequent wars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ² which shaped the territorial and border configurations of the region’s countries (Kacowicz and Mares, 2015).

This post-independence reconfiguration, directed by national elites seeking to expand their economic initiatives (Cid, 2012), required the establishment of rigid policies towards the new borders. Indeed, in Latin America, a civilizational discourse predominated with marked economic interest towards the confines of the state, focused on strategies for colonizing the borders (Lanteri and Martirén, 2020). Their objectives were intensive exploitation of natural resources, preferential treatment of oligarchic or non-native settlers, and assuring their family reproduction and position in governance of these peripheral territories lacking resources and infrastructure (Sommer, 2011).

One of the factors that stands out in this process was the unifying role that the border played in the face of the fragmentation of the nascent states: an attempt to converge the interests of different regional oligarchies and ruling sectors in the face of a neighboring country’s expansionist attempts (Lanteri and Martirén, 2020: 128). Consequently, the region’s states became concerned about controlling certain territories that allowed for a spatial projection of their interests throughout the twentieth century (Cohen, 2015). Borders played a key role in these trends for several reasons: the presence of a foreign population or Indigenous people not committed to the geopolitical project (Guisolfo, 1989); and its function as the epidermis of the state, distant from its vital nuclei, but represented as an empty space that is difficult to inhabit. Together, these factors created a problematic environment for state presence., (Ovando, Álvarez, and López 2020).

In addition to these factors, there are a number of conceptual issues. The Eurocentrism of the elites that made up the countries of the region sought to emulate and adapt to the hegemonic order of the civilized West. The most evident and, paradoxically brutal, expression of the “civilizing” ideal was reflected in the different processes of assimilation, homogenization and, in some cases, extermination, of the continent’s Indigenous population, which underpinned the colonization policies indicated above. The cases of Argentina and Chile are illustrative in the countries of the Southern Cone, where processes of “pacification” or coercive assimilation were carried out (Boccara and Seguel, 1999; Díaz, 2006).

One of the results of these processes was the marginalization of Indigenous ideas and practices from political life, including their international and cross-border expression. In the case of the Aymara, colonial strategies were aimed to both control and decisively establish cross-border displacements and modernize agriculture at the expense of its traditional forms ³ (Santana, 2013), since Indigenous people are generally represented as unstable, nomadic and uprooted within the colonial discourse (Wolfe, 2006). Furthermore, within the settlers’ powerful symbols of colonial identity, agriculture plays a key role of economic centrality, as land sustains life (Wolfe, 2006).

The emergence of military developmentalism and then of bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century deepened state-centric nationalism and the geopolitical logic of the state’s international practices. In the case of the latter, civil-military dictatorships deepened the homogenizing concept of the border and exclusion of the other through the discourse and practice of a national security doctrine (Chateau, 1977; Tapia 1980). The advent of democracy in Latin America, together with processes of globalization, neoliberalism, and economic interdependence, promoted a series of changes in international practices of the state. Governments established agreements and regimes of cooperation in the region in multiple areas, emphasizing economic-commercial matters and political coordination, while promoting internal adaptations to respond to these challenges. Renewed interest is emerging regarding border areas, as they are strategic for growing cross-border commercial exchange, but also because of the demands and empowerment of its inhabitants, including local authorities, civil society, Indigenous peoples, and others.

Within the widespread neoliberal model in the Global South, this phenomenon is currently framed in the state/society dialectic and its tensions, as reflected in the historical effect of various forms of colonialism that reinforce racial and territorial hierarchies (Bastos and Martínez, 2023). Thus, the persistence of colonialism is expressed from a logic for facilitating the functioning of capital, which dictates its reproduction through plunder, highlighting the instrumentalization of a set of political and cultural practices aimed at strengthening its legitimacy (Bastos and Martínez, 2023). As will be discussed in this study, it means employing state narratives that no longer regard these areas as “left behind” but as “opportunities.”

States have generated reforms in this context, such as granting greater powers to regions, and implementing special policies to promote their economic development. However, despite overcoming the conflictive era of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we still see the persistence of geopolitical perspectives (Carvajal, 2007; Ovando, Álvares, and López 2020), the reaffirmation of sovereignty and borders, and a growing trend towards border securitization and militarization.

As for the region’s foreign policies, these have historically had a marked centralist accent, as a result of the reluctance to grant greater international powers to subnational (Álvarez and Ovando, 2020; González, Cornago, and Ovando, 2016). Several of the factors that explain this phenomenon are reminiscent of nineteenth-century border disputes (Cairo and Lois, 2014), as well as the failure of governments to adapt to the dynamics that occur in these regions (Fuentes, 2007; Álvarez and Ovando, 2020). These trends point to the existing gap between national centers and neighboring regions, characterized by lower levels of economic and human development compared to the rest of the country, geographic isolation, infrastructure problems, institutional precariousness, and the non-existence of value chains beyond the border (Juste and Oddone, 2020).

Viewed through a decolonial lens, the state’s reaction to these challenges represented a form of “coloniality of power” (Quijano, 2000), where the central state subordinates the subjectivities and expressions of these territories in order to further its own interests and those of transnational actors. In recent decades, changes have been noted in the expressions emerging from local spaces and in the tensions with hegemonic structures. Despite the persistence of the logic of traditional and transnational sovereignty, and its translation into strategies aimed at maintaining the conditions of domination (Halvorsen 2019), the reporting of ideas and practices emanating from marginalized territories that contest state power has become increasingly common (Agnew and Oslender, 2010; Halvorsen, 2019). This development can be observed in the field of international relations, traditionally hegemonized by diplomatic practices (Taylor 2012; Blaney and Tickner, 2017; Rivera Cusicanqui, 2010; Zapata, 2018).

The decolonial perspective—and even possible developments from an anti-colonial vision of international relations ⁴ —applied to international studies precisely emphasizes the study of these marginalized areas. They are seen as spaces of resistance to the state-centric European model, since they express knowledge and practices that challenge colonial and universal hierarchies, and the powers naturalized by history (Taylor 2012; Blaney and Tickner, 2017; Tucker, 2018; Halvorsen, 2019). Thus, the study of border areas requires the serious consideration of marginalized ideas and practices, not understanding them as excluded as in predominant thought, but from the ontologies and expressions they develop and interact with the dominant powers (Blaney and Tickner, 2017). Although these ideas and practices have been historically marginalized, they contain complexities and expressions that not only differ from hegemonic ones, but also have political agency and transformative potential (Taylor, 2012).

In the case of our study, it was important to consider ideas and practices developed in the confines of the Chilean state, which involve experiences of intercommunity interaction between the Aymara people and the state.

Chile: Foreign Policy, Borders, And Neoliberal Geopolitics

The Pinochet dictatorship generated substantial changes in state policies that had their foreign policy counterparts, also affecting border regions. On the one hand, the internationalist tradition, which characterized Chilean foreign policy until 1973, was altered with the emergence of the anti-communist component, or “ideological praetorianism” (Muñoz, 1986), that the civil-military dictatorship of Pinochet attached to external relations, which led to isolation in the international arena (Wilhelmy, 1979). Excessive concern for geopolitical variables as determinants of ties with other actors, especially in the case of borders and neighboring countries, added to this isolation. On the other hand, the neoliberal model was imposed and consolidated during this period, which in the case of foreign action strengthened links between local economic elites and those of central countries (Muñoz, 1986), especially in commercial relations and on the functional and dependent adaptation of interdependence and neoliberal globalization processes (Muñoz and Asenjo, 1990).

Following this trend, regionalization (administrative decentralization) and its territorial transformations also occurred within the framework of the neoliberal modernization of the dictatorship (Olguín, 2019; Amilhat-Szary, 1997). Regions were governed in accordance with the local application of neoliberal principles, leaving each subdivision of the country free to value its “comparative advantages” in world markets (Amilhat-Szary, 1997: 59–60). This trend materialized through Decree Law No. 600 of 1974, which promoted foreign investment in the country, especially on the northern border of Chile, through preferential investment rights for transnational mining, among other policies. This consolidated the accumulation matrix focused on intensive export of natural resources in the hands of transnationals at the expense of the local population (Ortiz, 2020).

The return of democracy in Chile implied changes to the dictatorship’s public policies, which manifested in the country’s international reintegration into the multilateral system based on adherence to international law and the promotion of human rights (Heine, 1991; Artaza and Ross, 2012). Yet there have also been continuities, particularly in the field of international economic relations (Colacrai, 2008; Fuentes, 2012) and in the importance given to borders and neighboring countries, along with the attraction of foreign direct investment (Álvarez and Ovando, 2020).

Chile’s border policies are characterized by the historical and paradoxical neglect of populated border centers by a state that promoted decentralization and manifested a certain interest in those areas (Pérez, 2019; Ovando, Álvares, and López, 2020). These policies, present in most of the continent’s borders, allude to a project of expansion that radiates from urban centers towards peripheral groups and remote areas that possess chimerical riches accessible to capital and its spatial organization (Serje, 2012; 2017). This implies that state presence at the margins continues to be complex and ineffective. With that in mind, analyzing the current persistence of the logic of conquests in the Southern Cone requires delving into the complexity of the national-regional social structure and its cultural composition (Soto, 2023). This examination is especially important considering that liberal, hegemonic statehood entails the annulment of Indigenous bodies as the foundation of the capitalist system, supported by the idea of racist nationality and concealing expressions of territorial exclusion (Soto, 2023).

These policies also reflect the neoliberal character of Chilean public policies: they are targeted and time bound. This means that once the intervention has been carried out in the underdeveloped area, the state withdraws, giving way to market forces (Corvalán, 1999). While this is common in public management in general, it has a greater effect in remote areas given their difficulties and scant demographic relevance. In this way, the various state agencies have seldom been called to account for their actions in these “abandoned” regions (Serje, 2012; 2017).

What then remains of state interventions? These secure the integration of marginal zones towards regional and national urban centers, employing institutional mechanisms that affect and hinder contact with the other foreign entities (customs, military, immigration, etc.). Regarding Andean Aymara communities in northern Chile, in the face of Peruvian and Bolivian revisionism ⁵ (Von Chrismar, 1993; Ghisolfo, 1989), the dictatorship, using nationalist overtones, “municipalized” their northern social space, transforming peripheries into local capitals. In fact, if we compare the policies of national states with colonial strategies, specifically with regard to the Chilean case, we see that these governments have tried to impose border limits and administrative divisions that seek to fragment any ethnic structure that may have become the basis of anticolonial organization (Soto, 2023).

Thus, in addition to providing a series of social benefits (Gunderman, 2003), this new nexus sought national integration to allow these lagging areas to be incorporated into the rest of the country’s development pattern (Pérez, 2019; Román, 2020). Therefore, whether or not an isolated municipality is on the border, it receives the same treatment in policy design, which overlooks this geographical condition as an opportunity for development through contacts with neighboring territories or by highlighting its ethnic uniqueness.

In addition, one of the consequences of failed policies towards the margins is the problem of social dislocation. This notably affects the border territories of Arica Parinacota and Tarapacá. ⁶ The breakdown of ties between the community and its territory has been increasing in the extreme north of Chile due to such factors as the gradual decrease in the population density of towns, the vast expanse of the territories, and their distance from regional urban centers (Ruiz, 2018). We also highlight socioenvironmental conflicts between mining companies and Indigenous communities under the protection of International Labor Organization Convention 169. ⁷ The problem of depopulation and coordination of the development of marginal regions has been addressed in recent decades by agencies such as the Undersecretary of Regional Development (SUBDERE), the Directorate of Borders and Limits of MINREL, and, recently, by its Office of Strategic Planning.

The Parinacota Plan And Neoliberal Geopolitics

The Parinacota Master Plan was an initiative of the MINREL through its Office of Strategic Planning. The Plan, put forward by President Sebastián Piñera, aimed to repopulate the province of Parinacota to create better conditions of life for people, promote infrastructure, connectivity, agriculture, and tourism, highlighting “the importance of marginal areas” for MINREL (MINREL, 2018). Parinacota is located in the Arica and Parinacota regions in the extreme north of Chile, bordering Bolivia and Peru.

According to then-Foreign Minister Roberto Ampuero, the initiative would be “a joint, total, holistic strengthening of Chile’s presence and sovereignty in the extreme north” (Cooperativa, 2018). In addition, he noted: “It is essential that the foreign policy is in tune with national public policies. Only in this way is it possible to think in strategic terms, consolidating the defense of Chile’s interests in the most remote areas of the national territory, preserving ancestral cultures” (El Mercurio, 2018).

For its execution, MINREL held “a series of dialogues with the area’s residents with the objective of giving a social seal to the development and implementation of the plan,” including meetings with “companies and entrepreneurs seeking to project themselves to the world.” It also held meetings with authorities from various government agencies (undersecretaries of Defense, Treasury, Economy, Public Works, Social Services, Social Development, National Assets, Tourism and Cultural Heritage), “together with senators and deputies to work on the Plan for Parinacota,” and emphasized “the importance of remote areas for the Ministry and in the case of the north, the urgency to recover repopulation and create better living conditions for people” (MINREL, 2018).

Additionally, the Plan included an intersectoral workshop between regional and government authorities, noting that the “the government of President Sebastián Piñera seeks to reinforce sovereignty and promote the infrastructure, connectivity, agriculture and tourism of the residents who make the Andean zone their homeland.” At the same meeting, the governor of the province of Parinacota pointed out that the Plan “is a great opportunity for the Andean territory to have the government tools that allow us to accelerate the development of our province, which has been postponed for so many years and which urgently needs to improve their productive activities” (Government of the Province of Parinacota, 2018).

Beyond these issues and actors, the Parinacota Plan was framed as one of a series of measures MINREL designed to strengthen the sovereignty of the country in the remote north. The initiative was laid out in the document “An Analysis from Foreign Policy,” which emphasized the importance of the province of Parinacota both as a border region with Peru and Bolivia, and its “serious shortcomings that could even generate a risk for the area residents’ identity with Chile” (El Mercurio, 2018). The danger was viewed as the product of the territory’s depopulation and low population density, lack of electricity (compared to Bolivia), investment, among other factors (El Mercurio, 2018).

Additionally, in an article published in the magazine Diplomacia, the director of MINREL’s Strategic Planning pointed out that Arica and Parinacota are complex and geopolitically strategic for Chilean foreign policy. The text notes that it is “essential for the state to read and manage the structural weaknesses of the Chilean highland territory, since failure to do so (or delaying it) could trigger a process of erosion of its identity with Chile” (Ruiz, 2018: 46). This is due to a population decline of 50 percent from 1992 to date, and a lack of basic services, meager communal budgets, infrastructural deficit, dissatisfaction with the state among residents, and demands for autonomy from Indigenous communities, among other issues (Ruiz, 2018). In this context, Roberto Ruiz (2018: 47) suggests that the Parinacota Plan, due to its foreign policy intentions, opens the possibility of fully promoting and developing the border highlands with the understanding that the Foreign Ministry can “provide a global, articulating and systematic view of the problem” and that the Plan is created with the active participation of the highland communities: mayors, neighborhood associations, and Aymara representatives.

In tune with the Plan’s sovereign vision, José Miguel Insulza, the senator for the region of Arica and Parinacota, and former foreign minister (1994-1999) during the presidency of Eduardo Frei, stated that the province of Parinacota not only lacks connectivity and services, and suffers from isolation, but also has geopolitical importance for the country. However, he also warned about the insufficiencies of the Plan, regarding “the lack of guidance and concrete responses for the strengthening of the province,” in the areas of basic services, connectivity, productive development (Arica al Día, 2018).

Years later, another former foreign minister of the Piñera government, Teodoro Ribera, put forward a similar argument in an op ed: “In particular, the Andean north shows decades-long neglect, which has fueled feelings of disillusionment and a dangerous distance with Chilean identity” (Ribera, 2023). Additionally, regarding the RUNASUR ⁸ project and its eventual effects in northern Chile, he stated:

What is happening in the Peruvian Andean south should call us to critically analyze our own situation, since the state abandonment that remote regions suffer from, especially rural regions of Chile, is visible, they have not developed and progressed as shown on television. It is a wake-up call to the Chilean state, its public policies and even its foreign policy, [we are] indebted to these areas. (Ribera, 2023)

He goes even further and argues that the state’s inattention to this territory entails: “a deep disappointment of its communities towards the state, which is accompanied by a growing adhesion towards the Aymara” (Ribera, 2023).

These perspectives are not only evident in the central leadership of the ministry through its ministers and Planning Office, but are also expressed through other policies and departments. The concern was forcefully put forward by the Directorate of Borders and Limits (DIFROL), an advisory body to MINREL “whose main mission is to preserve and strengthen the territorial integrity of the country, providing professional and technical advice . . . in matters of borders and limits. DIFROL also advises . . . on matters related to Chile’s international boundaries and physical, neighboring and regional integration policies.” ⁹

Since its creation in 1969, DIFROL has been characterized by a legal-territorial approach to the concept of the international border (Dilla and Contreras, 2021) and an incipient bilateral, cooperative, cross-border vision supported primarily by integration and border committees ¹⁰ in this territory (Pérez, 2019). Indeed, DIFROL’s mission, as its former director (2015-2022) points out, does not have a border development policy, which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Social Development:

It seems to me that today there is no development plan for the advancement of border areas. There have been plans in the past for remote areas.. . . But in general, I think that all of this goes to the Ministry of Social Development . . . my diagnosis is that there is currently no development policy for border areas” (Ximena Fuentes, Interview, Santiago, October 19, 2021).

Another interviewee, and current director of DIFROL, agrees with that statement and provides a definition of a border zone associated with development policy:

Those border zone declarations are very old. They were already associated with an idea of defense, but they never had a parallel development program. . .. Indeed, I believe that there is no plan, for either the northern zone or the southern zone. I am from Punta Arenas, so I know a little about those areas and one of the things that people always claim is to have some kind of benefit from living in isolated areas, which has a fairly large cost, let’s say, but I think there really isn’t [a plan]. (Carlos Detlef, Interview, Santiago, October 19, 2021)

It is interesting that DIFROL’s director views the border as an isolated area, emphasizing that two criteria can overlap when considering intervention in the border region. However, the execution of the Parinacota Plan, as we will see below, makes it evident that a geopolitical vision predominates, in accordance with the institutional prerogatives of MINREL and the perspective of a central power that is distant and in tension with local reality.

Aymara Communities: Ideas And Local Practices

The Parinacota Plan contemplated dialogue between the area’s communities and national, regional, and local authorities. However, these authorities did not comply with the plan’s intention, nor did they generate the expected results. Although this could have been due to multiple political, organizational, and budgetary factors, among others, we focus on the ideas and practices of local communities, highlighting some elements in the dialogue’s development, which transcend this situation and involve Aymara communities’ worldview and their relationship with the state.

The Indigenous Development Areas (ADI), created within the framework of the so-called Indigenous Law (No. 19,253), is one of the main components of the relations contemplated by the Parinacota Plan. The ADI’s are “territorial spaces in which state agencies focus their action for the benefit of the harmonious development of Indigenous people and their communities” (Law No. 19,253, Art. 26). According to this law, the relationship with the state encompasses “the right of Indigenous people to maintain and develop their own cultural manifestations . . . and the obligation of state administration services to listen to and consider the opinion of Indigenous organizations recognized by law” (Law No. 19,253, Art, 7 and 34).

Although the government sought dialogue with residents of the area for the plan’s implementation, differences arose between the Alto Andino Parinacota ADI and the government. Likewise, Indigenous leaders of the territory not only expressed their objections to the Plan, but also distanced themselves from the state’s perspectives.

On the one hand, they warned about the policy’s impact on the territories and the failure to consider relevant national and international regulatory elements in its implementation. As Indigenous representatives of the Alto Andino ADI stated, the Parinacota Plan could generate:

[An] impact on the lives, beliefs, institutions and spiritual well-being and lands of Indigenous communities [so it is] the obligation of the state to generate spaces for participation and collaboration with Indigenous peoples in plans and programs of national and regional development that may directly affect them; open formal spaces for participation in the preparation of the Parinacota Master Plan; [and] said participation must recognize the representation that peoples and communities have given themselves.” (Consejo Nacional Aymara, 2018)

The above not only relates to this particular case. Community forms of organization and relationships have changed significantly since the colonial period and, above all, since the emergence of the state. But more recently, during the military dictatorship, Aymara organizations were dissolved or intervened through the creation of smaller units under the auspices of state municipal entities (Carmona, 2006; Gunderman, 2018). Although Indigenous policy aimed to recognize ethnic pluralism and establish regulations for the territorial organization of communities after the return to democracy (Albó, 2000), it did so under regulations that do not involve dealing with Indigenous social movements, but rather with political organizations that follow government guidelines (Zapata, 2007). Despite this, given the international nature of the Parinacota Plan and the incorporation of external instruments into internal regulations, Indigenous communities expected another type of dynamic.

In effect, it was necessary for the government to recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples contained in instruments such as ILO Convention 169, respecting their right to decide priorities and to be consulted in connection with development processes and plans (Consejo Nacional Aymara, 2018). There was no consultation with Indigenous organizations in the process of the Parinacota Plan, despite the fact that Chile—at the date of implementation of the Plan—had ratified and put Convention 169 into force 10 years earlier. As the Consejo Nacional Aymaraor of the commune of Putre, Delia Condori, stated:

No authority that accompanied [the minister] considered or warned the minister that the territory he was stepping on was a declared Indigenous territory . . . and he was also not concerned that here in Chile there is agreement 169 and that we must work with the communities. (Rollano, 2018)

Furthermore, the representative of the Aymara council of the Camarones municipality, Vilma Godoy, warned that the government’s proposal for repopulation is not correct, although she stated that “repopulation of the area is necessary and urgent. . . They have now approved it, but without our participation . . . they have not involved us in the appropriate way . . . the identity of places that have ancestral value could be affected by the Executive’s proposal” (Rollano, 2018).

Alongthe same lines, Aymara leader Delia Condori notes that, although the Parinacota Plan was announced as a new initiative, “in practice it already had resources assigned, which is why community councilors perceived it as deception” (Delia Condori, Interview, Arica, December 10, 2021). Also, for the former leader of the Putre community, Tomás Lara, “these types of plans are just a staging, which do not propose real solutions to the needs of the communities, so new administrative measures are necessary to implement this type of initiatives that, in the case of the Parinacota Plan, were not even carried out” (Interview with Tomás Lara, Arica, December 9, 2021). This confirms that instruments such as C169 “have not been taken into consideration nor have they been applied correctly . . . although the Convention has been positive in environmental projects, it does not cover the entire legal field, the policies do not abide by it in practice and the business community does not respect international treaties” (Interview with Tomás Lara, Arica, December 9, 2021). Confirming this statement, Delia Condori adds:

C169 is a positive instrument for the communities, especially in the face of obstructing and halting the development of mining projects in the area . . . it is necessary for the state to make an internal modification and modernization of the law so that it is in accordance with what is stipulated in the agreement. Likewise, when the Convention was signed, no implementing regulations were generated that considered the opinion of Indigenous peoples . . . the people who are in charge of making decisions in the state are not informed about the Convention, so they do not know how to apply the corresponding measures. (Interview with Delia Condori, Arica, December 10, 2021)

There is evidence of the state’s distancing and ignorance of the territorial reality in general and, in particular, regarding the ideas and practices of Aymara communities. Thus, the Alto Andino ADI has pointed out the need for the state to “recognize the dynamics of our peoples to deliberate the time, space, resources, and assistance. We want to contribute to this process from our vision, from our heritage as Indigenous peoples. It is an opportunity to put an end to a long tradition of imposition from the state and our brothers’ and sisters’ passivity” (Consejo Nacional Aymara, 2018).

Tomás Lara objected that authorities are not receptive:

Communities are not consulted in time to participate in decisions that affect them, nor is there any opportunity for participation in the design of measures to be adopted. They are asked to adhere to laws/norms already designed by the central government, which are created in a general way for the entire national territory, but which do not consider the specific local realities and of Indigenous peoples. The ancient tradition of the Aymara people is dismissed. (Interview with Tomás Lara, Arica, December 9, 2021)

For her part, Delia Condori maintains that “consultations are based on the interests of the state, and not on the needs of the people. We propose that the projects, programs, and legislative reforms must emerge from the people to the state, and it is [the people] who must be able to set the times for their design and implementation” (Interview with Delia Condori, Arica, December 10, 2021).

In this dialogue, it was clear that the geopolitical and depopulation problems raised by the authorities went beyond the concerns and knowledge of the communities. As Aymara leader Marcela Gómez expresses:

I remember that when Don Roberto Ampuero [Minister of Foreign Affairs] came, he went to the tripartite border, where Chile begins . . . he was shown the river that was dry, because the Peruvians diverted the water, there is even a canal in the Uchusumo and that canal is Peruvian and passes through Chilean territory and they have drillings around that canal. They extract water and now there is a lake there that is the white lagoon, that used to be a large lagoon, but today there is no lagoon left, it is all bare. Because the Peruvians extract those waters from the groundwater, and he saw all that. He already knew that; he knew that there were like nine wells there. I didn’t even know and he already knew. And also, the mining company that is near the Chile-Peru border on the Peruvian side, there’s a mining company and they also have wells. There is a problem that they moved the border, and they already know that at the political level. (Marcela Gómez, interview, Arica, December 8, 2021)

For Gómez, depopulation has a lot to do with state policies, which “have not been directed at our sector. They have a mentality that development should be directed to the valleys and urban areas and the highlands simply disappear” (Interview with Marcela Gómez, Arica, December 8, 2021).

Coincidentally, for Tomás Lara, depopulation is associated with state policies “that come from a centralizing view of the Chilean state, which excludes communities” (Interview with Tomás Lara, Arica, December 9, 2021). This centralizing tendency shows that state-directed re-population efforts prioritize the paradigms of modernization, and private investors’ occupation and plundering of resources.

Conclusions

Many government leaders and state agents have failed to abandon traditional geopolitical views about border regions and inhabitants despite processes such as democratization, neoliberalization, border opening, and decentralization. Although governments have adapted to the international context by signing agreements such as ILO C169, ideas centered on nineteenth-century disputes that consider border spaces for their geopolitical and economic value remain.

One factor that explains the acceptance of these perspectives is the discourse of sovereignty, which views the territory and its inhabitants as a homogeneous whole—both materially and subjectively—and argues that it must be strengthened. Another factor is the so-called “adaptations” made in this direction that seek to incorporate diverse cultural and local expressions into a national identity framework that has allegedly been dangerously eroded. These are contemporary forms of coloniality that do not necessarily manifest themselves in the form of coercive material power, but rather through foreign policy and developmental plans of an assimilative character that are derived from the basic imperatives of national interest.

In this sense, local ideas and practices are not considered in policies towards border regions, but at the same time, dynamics that can challenge the structures of traditional sovereign power are consistently developing. In this case, Aymara communities that live on the “margins” of the state are not completely imbued with the national identity framework, and they express ideas and relationships that differ from the logic of central power. However, these are indeed taken into account by the international system’s normative elements that the state itself has subscribed to but does not implement.

On the one hand, there is a clear claim from Aymara communities for the state to enforce the rights protected in instruments such as C169, which are not taken into account by government border policies and involve the right to be consulted, their participation in instances that affect them, and the right to interact across borders. These legally recognized demands are unmet by the state and its agents. Thus, in the face of other ways of thinking, state policy is incapable of adjusting, producing a cognitive dissonance emanating from Indigenous communities. Furthermore, beyond normative issues, there are ideological elements emerging from Aymara communities, expressed in forms of community and intercommunity relationships, which differ from state logic.

It should be noted that the perspective of national authorities, as expressed in the border “repopulation” program, the promotion of “productive activities,” and the concern over the “erosion of the identity” of Aymara residents, reflects an historical vision of national identity. Its most palpable expression is reflected in a series of statements by former diplomats who have exaggeratedly expressed apprehensions, highlighting the erosion of national identity among the Aymara, in the process revealing implicit racism (Soto, 2023).

Furthermore, it is essential to recognize the coexistence of multiple and heterogeneous conceptions of territory within the Parinacota Plan, which have been woven together in various ways. Different ontologies of territory in tension with this Plan can be inferred, which should play a key role in shaping territorial policy for the far north of Chile and its highlands: the ontology of the Indigenous community, inspired by community land use and the collective autonomy of Aymara society, and that of state-directed settlement, based on the paradigms of modernization, occupation, and “rational” distribution of resources. Examining their interaction enhances understanding of the porosity and plurality of the concepts of territory and border, and allows for rethinking public initiatives.

Underlying this paradigm of modernization is a racist ideological component expressed in the liberal hegemonic framework (Soto, 2023). Elites associate Aymara ethnic identity with a secessionist political project typical of a border community. That identity is also based on the plurinational, which may serve to divide the territory and Aymara communities through overestimating their culture—that is, their language, ethnicity, deteriorated socioeconomic situation, their feeling of historical abandonment, and their place of belonging—which crosses national borders. This perspective is conducive to clashes with state security policies, homogenization, and political control, in combination with the logic of neoliberal capitalism.