Manuel Prieto

• Doctor of Philosophy, Geography
• Professor (Full) at University of Tarapacá

What is “uncooperative” about the commodification of nature? This article argues that critical understandings of neoliberal environmental governance must contend with complex processes of identity formation and mobilization. Drawing on an analysis of water rights formalization in Chile, widely seen as the most radical case of water commodification...

Bofedales are azonal peat-forming wetlands located in the tropical and subtropical Andes at high altitudes (approximately 3200-5000 m). Motivated by their socio-ecological importance, unique landscape qualities, and increasing vulnerability, scholars have developed a rich research agenda to better understand this ecosystem. We conducted an analysis...

In the Andes, multiple human and climatic factors threaten the conservation of bofedales, a type of high altitude peat forming wetland widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical Andes. In northern Chile, climate change and water extraction for industrial activities are among the most significant threats to these relevant socio-hydrological...

In this intervention, we explore the impacts of geopolitical bifurcation on the field of political ecology, specifically the divide between political ecology from the Global North and political ecology from the Global South. We argue that this divide perpetuates categorical essentialisms, flattens authors' standpoints, and reproduces inequities in...

Nature correspondence

High-altitude wetlands (HAWs) are important aquatic ecosystems located more than 3000 m a.s.l. in the Andean Altiplano–Puna plateau that include springs, meadows, peatlands, saline lakes, and salt flats. This region experiences arid climate conditions with high evaporation rates, extreme daily and annual thermal variations, intense winds, and excep...

Buscamos avanzar en una agenda de investigación que promueve la desnaturalización de los bofedales, destacando el valor de la arqueología en diálogo con las comunidades y otras disciplinas para la comprensión de estos espacios. Presentamos resultados preliminares obtenidos en Mulluri, Parcohaylla y Surire (Puna Seca, Chile), donde analizamos la org...

The Atacama Desert’s naturally elevated metal(loid)s pose a unique challenge for assessing the environmental impact of mining, particularly for indigenous communities residing in these areas. This study investigates how copper mining influences the dispersion of these elements in the wind‐transportable fraction (<75 μm) of surface sediments across...

La apicultura, tanto a nivel mundial como en Chile, es una actividad de gran importancia para la economía campesina, el resguardo de la flora melífera y la seguridad alimentaria mediante los servicios de polinización. Por ello, organismos internacionales y Estados la consideran una actividad estratégica para el desarrollo rural, y en concordancia,...

Mini guía de flora Altoandina en la Frontera boliviano-chilena

Studies on the agrarian question in Latin America have dealt with the role of capital in the area of agriculture and forestry while paying scant attention to its role in other areas, such as mining. Research on mining extractivism, for its part, has privileged recent socio-environmental conflicts without delving into the configurations of social cl...

Artículo parte del Themed Section: Indigenous Geographies in the Making and Translations https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/issue/view/140

Imaginaries serve as the foundational framework shaping representations and influencing societal perspectives, subsequently guiding specific practices. Within the realm of geographical imaginaries, this article adopted a geohistorical perspective, using periodicals, secondary sources, and contemporary digital media to shed light on the geography of...

Extractivism has marked the history of Latin America whose operations are in rural territories inhabited mainly by indigenous populations. Mining has had a remarkable expansion in rural territories of the Andes. Critical studies of these processes have focused on the disruptive aspects and conflict between companies, local populations, and States....

Until the mid-1980s, the Atacameño indigenous people were broadly caricatured as Chilean peasants or herders. In the 1980s, they began a process of resurgence as indigenous in order to attain legal recognition. Structural approaches to indigeneity have explored this phenomenon by seeing Atacameños as passive subjects whose identity has been imposed...

Para comprender las configuraciones socioambientales de los territorios rurales Latinoamericanos, es clave considerar que en la mayoría de estos espacios se han desarrollado actividades intensivas en la explotación de recursos naturales, los cuales son exportados con bajo procesamiento al mercado mundial. Estas operaciones se han intensificado en l...

Since ancient times Andean societies have formed an intimate relationship with volcanoes, the beginnings of which can be traced right back to the initial peopling of the region. By studying rocks used for stone tools and other everyday artifacts, we explore the volcanic landscapes of early hunter-gatherer groups (11,500–9,500 cal BP) of the highlan...

Marine sacrificial zones are planned areas dedicated to the toxic violence of carbo-chemical port development around the world. In the marine environment in Chile, repeated fisher led new social movements have been raised regarding the need to create laws controlling marine pollution from combined coal power station/extraction complexes and realise...

Both supporters and critics of the Chilean water model have described it as a textbook example of deregulation and the free-market model for water management. In this article, we challenge this characterization and argue that the model has relied on long-term and highly centralized State decisions that have installed and reproduced historical power...

This article presents a dataset on the accumulated water flow (L/s) granted in the Antofagasta Region for each year between 1905 and 2018. We produced the dataset starting from the official public records on water rights (Registro Público de Derechos de Aprovechamiento de Aguas, RPDAA), which are free to access and available at the National Water A...

Northern Chile, and particularly the Precordillera and Altiplano area, has climatic conditions characterized by aridity, but not exempt from intense rainfall events and very cold temperatures. Aymara communities have settled in this area since pre-Columbian times and have prospered and developed agropastoral activities despite these unfavorable con...

Across the Andes, a critical challenge for mountain socioecological systems is securing water for future generations. Pastoral communities are especially vulnerable because their livelihood practices are often unseen or perceived as a threat to natural resource conservation. In addition to the challenges of climate change, socioeconomic and politic...

Andean high-altitude wetlands are important ecosystems that serve a range of social- ecological functions. In the Andes, bofedales, a specific type of peat-producing wetland, are essential for the sustainability of mountain ecosystems and indigenous pastoralist communities. The Chucuyo bofedal in northern Chile is affected by climatic variability a...

In 1906, the Guggenheim Exploration Company (GUGGENEX), financed the low-grade copper project that Daniel Cowen Jackling had started three years earlier at Bingham Canyon (Utah, US). With GUGGENEX’s investment, the exploitation of copper entered into the open-pit mining era. Nine years later, the Guggenheims applied the industrial experience acquir...

Since the mid-twentieth century, Latin American rural territories have undergone significant transformations. One of the leading causes is the expansion of large-scale operations that exploit natural resources for world market exportation with low processing. In this paper, we study the changes in agricultural activities, livestock, and land use in...

RESUMEN La condición climática global y la incierta situación socio-política nacional han propiciado necesarios debates en torno a la relación entre economía política y naturaleza en Chile. En este artículo, hacemos una reflexión incorporando elementos teóricos y modelos empíricos chilenos para analizar brevemente el rol del conocimiento científico...

In this article, we problematize conventional views regarding culture presented in the assessment report entitled Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. This report is a contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We posit that when culture is seen as a stable c...

Arica is a coastal city located in northern Chile, in the Atacama Desert. The behavior of surface temperatures in the city between 1985 and 2019 was studied using Landsat satellite images, leading to the identification of surface urban heat islands (SUHI), surface urban cold islands (SUCI), and average temperature zones. The higher intensities of t...

The Andean Altiplano-Puna is located at an elevation of approximately 4000 m.a.s.l. and is delineated by the Western and the Eastern Andes Cordillera. The high-altitude wetlands (HAWs) in the Central Andes are unique ecosystems located in the Altiplano that provide many ecosystem services. The objective of this study was to characterize the spatial...

One of the most crucial discussions within water resource management is the debate between those who defend the concept of economic efficiency and those who privilege notions of social equity. This tension is located at the core of binary categories that currently constitute the public debate within comparative water law and policy. These categorie...

Geographical research on lithium and other renewable energy materials explores the geopolitical dimensions of resource supply and the 'new geographies' associated with an expanding resource frontier. The material characteristics and environmental conditions of lithium production, however, are largely overlooked in this perspective. In the context o...

In the Atacama Desert highlands, Aymara communities have practised herding since pre-Hispanic times. Currently, large areas of the mountains’ ecosystems are under official protection. This situation has created tensions between Aymara herding practices and official conservation policies. In this article, we document herding practices and how they h...

La provincia de El Loa, habitada históricamente por población andina dedicada a actividades agrícolas, pastoriles y de intercambio, ha ocupado un lugar estratégico en la expansión del extractivismo cuprífero chileno y su inserción internacional. Ahí se emplaza Chuquicamata, la que fuera durante parte importante del siglo XX la mina de cobre más gra...

In recent years, scholars have examined the non-or more-than-human world from a variety of unique positions. This article draws on contemporary archaeology and assemblage theories in geography to put forward an understanding of everyday geopolitics that includes the presence of objects in the formation of state subjectivity. Our approach, however,...

Pro-market models for natural resources management rely on the argument that markets would allocate resources apolitically, ensuring individual freedom, directing them towards highest economic value uses and, thus, ensuring both efficient allocation and maximization of total social welfare within the contexts of scarcity. In the mid-1970s, the Chil...

In the Atacama Desert highlands, Aymara communities have practised herding since pre-Hispanic times. Currently, large areas of the mountains’ ecosystems are under official protection. This situation has created tensions between Aymara herding practices and official conservation policies. In this article, we document herding practices and how they h...

Multiple dynamics produce the ecological present. For the past 30 years or more, in the southern Atacama salt pan (Salar) in northern Chile, extractive industries have been accumulating minerals and water in exhaustive quantities, taking ever more than may be regenerated. However, the exhaustion of the Salar de Atacama involves a more complex set o...

El caso de la instalación de la industria salmonera en la región de Los Lagos nos permite revisar la relación entre comoditización territorial e identidad. En este trabajo identificamos los procesos a través de los que la materialidad del salmón pudo alterar o gatillar transformaciones en la identidad local. A partir de una revisión y discusión de...

Copper mining and other extractive industries in the Atacama Desert have exerted pressure on water resources, with dramatic socio-environmental effects. The drying-out of the San Pedro de Inacaliri river basin is a paradigmatic case of this situation. Indigenous communities that used to graze their livestock in the area have seen the utter degradat...

The territorial transformations driven by the opening of the Chilean economy to the free market forty years ago have been analyzed from multiple perspectives. One of them was proposed in 2003 by Antonio Daher, describing certain regions as “commodi- ty-regions”, referring to those whose economic activity focuses on the export of one or two goods, a...

The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Development seeks to engage with comprehensive, contemporary and critical theoretical debates on Latin American development. The volume draws on contributions from across the humanities and social sciences and, unlike earlier volumes of this kind, explicitly highlights the disruptions to the field being brou...

“We were interested in understanding how an object this small could occupy such a relevant space in the imaginary. Measuring only eight by five centimetres, weighing one hundred grams, and made of plastic; the mines arranged along the border with Peru, Argentina and Bolivia; cover mountain, high plateau and seashore, in a territory in perpetual mov...

En el presente informe se presentan los resultados de un estudio preliminar de imágenes satelitales sobre el proceso de expansión de extracción de salmuera en el Salar de Atacama (II Región de Antofagasta, Chile). Los resultados son: (1) un mapa que ilustra la expansión en el tiempo y en el espacio de las piscinas de extracción de salmuera durante...

En algunas comunidades atacameñas, el mercado del agua no ha garantizado los derechos sobre el agua, sino que se privilegian los usos que generan mayor valor económico (p. ej. la minería o el consumo urbano). Aun así, en esas comunidades, las normas internas no sólo prohíben la venta de derechos sobre el agua a la minería, sino que también regulan...

http://atlasarqueologico.cl Atlas Arqueológico para niños: conociendo a los antiguos habitantes de mi región”, se denomina el libro que el Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Museo (IIAM) ha publicado para contar la historia de la Región de Antofagasta desde sus primeros habitantes hasta el presente. Fue el producto de un Proyecto Explora-...

Resumen El Código de Aguas chileno es conocido por ser un ejemplo radical de libre mercado. Como parte del proceso de implementación de este modelo en el Desierto de Atacama, la dictadura militar inició en 1983 la privatización de los derechos de aguas superficiales en las comunidades atacameñas de Lasana y Chiu-Chiu. El objetivo de esta acción fue...

Scholars who have critically analyzed the commodification of nature have explored how the specific bio-physical features of the objects to be commodified can shape the outcome of the commodification process. Thus, the establishment and behavior of a market system is closer to a political struggle than it is a simple technical and spontaneous proces...

El Código de Aguas chileno de 1981 es un caso radical de libre mercado. En el desierto de Atacama, los atacameños de la ciudad de Calama han movilizado su identidad indígena y la celebración de tradiciones dentro del contexto de la imposición de este código. Utilizando un enfoque de ecología política, en este artículo exploro cómo la reclamación de...

The Chilean water model has been described as a textbook example of a successful free water market system. This paper analyses water-rights transactions to determine how this water market has behaved in the northern Atacama Desert. It questions the neoliberal assumption that Chile’s unregulated water market has acted as an active tool to reallocate...

The Chilean water model has been described as a textbook example of a free-market water system. This article contributes to the critiques of this model by showing the effect of its implementation in the Atacameño community of Chiu-Chiu, located in the Atacama Desert in the south-central Andes. In this community, the privatization of water rights ig...

La ecología política rompe el mito de la naturaleza como fenómeno prepolítico, destacando las narrativas hegemónicas que la producen discursiva y materialmente. Este enfoque cuestiona la forma de generar conocimiento sobre la naturaleza e interroga a los ganadores y perdedores en las relaciones entre ser humano y medio ambiente. El libro introduce...

Since the War of the Pacific against Peru and Bolivia (1879–1883), the Chilean State has constantly reproduced its sovereign power in the Atacama Desert by using differ- ent technologies of governance. During the Pinochet military regime (1973–1990), this process was radicalized through the militarization of the area. This militarization, in turn,...

La idea de pluralismo legal (o jurídico) está escasamente representada en la literatura en es- pañol. Motivado por ello, el presente trabajo es una invitación para que el lector se familiarice con la genealogía y principales elementos del enfoque aportado por esta idea. Para tal propósito, en primer lugar, se discutirá la ideología del centralismo...

This paper presents an institutional analysis of hydropower development in Chile, focusing on the main legal institutions involved and relevant jurisprudence. Hydropower expansion took place within a neoliberal institutional framework imposed by the military government (1973–1990) that included reforms in both the water and electricity sectors. One...

As one of the earliest and deepest cases of neoliberal reform, Chile's political economic model has been the subject of extensive debate. The associated environmental law and policy that emerged in this context has, however, received little attention. The country's environmental policymaking process as well as the character and effects of the envir...