The industrial heritage of two sacrifice zones and the geopolitics of memory in Northern Chile. The cases of Gatico and Ollagüe

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Antofagasta region, now part of northern Chile, belonged to Bolivia until the so-called War of the Pacific (1879–1883). Since the end of the nineteenth century, with the irruption of foreign and national capitals, the area witnessed intense industrialisation and mining expansion. Industrial mining modified local communities’ livelihoods, social practices, landscapes, and ecologies. Gatico (coast) and Ollagüe (highlands) were two mining centres that agglutinated a significant migrant workforce to produce copper and sulphur, respectively. Now dismantled, both peripheric extractive spaces form an ‘industrial topology’ structured outside the national margins. Abandoned industrial infrastructures and the chemical debris of mining activities reconfigure the current geopolitics of memory among local communities. Tensions and dissonances emerge from the touristic and economic ‘museumification’ of these sacrifice zones and their industrial ruins.