Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The predictions and forecasts of climatic events have occupied an important place in the Aymara's cosmovision that inhabit the foothills and highlands of northern Chile. Especially in how the climatic predictors of the natural environment are part of the ritual and utilitarian culture of this ethnic community concerning their agricultural production. In this context, using a qualitative research methodology, 15 in-depth interviews were carried out with Aymara community members from 8 pre-Andean localities of Arica and Parinacota and 4 altiplano localities of Tarapacá, systematizing and analyzing the main characteristics of how this traditional knowledge system operates. It is argued that among the predictions, the observation of stellar phenomena is disappearing, but not that of climatic phenomena, especially predictors of atmospheric phenomena, flora, and fauna, among others, survive. Also, the loss of this knowledge is irreparably perceived at both the individual and community level, threatening its conservation as part of our intangible cultural heritage.

In these interviews we seek to offer readers a critical and updated look at the approaches to the study of space and place names (toponymy) in the Andean highlands through the fieldwork experience of three renowned researchers: Verónica Cereceda, Rodolfo Cerrón Palomino and Axel E. Nielsen. From a set of questions based on the certainty of interdisciplinary work in indigenous territories and their denominations, we seek to account for the points of encounter, the reluctance and methodological limitations to address studies on the Andean Cordillera.  

The avant-garde and innovative character of the squatting movement led some activists to conceive squatted spaces as fronts on which it is also possible to develop a critique and a cultural alternative, which often takes the form of artistic experimentation. These practices, in addition to being transgressive, tend to be attractive to promoters (public and private) of cities that increasingly vie for a global space, where a niche is frequently gained through cultural policies. In this context, numerous cases illustrate that squatted spaces have been co-opted for gentrifying dynamics.

During the months of December 2020 and January 2021, this interview was conducted via email with the archaeologist Lautaro Núñez, whose long career is already part of the history of the archeology of the Norte Grande and of national historiography. The interview was structured in order to give an account of the variety of interests to which he has dedicated himself, fostering a deepening of the issues and problems that have most moved him to reflect on his work and in particular on his own job in the broader sense: as someone dedicated to delving into the past. In this sense, it proposes a structure of four temporal strata that have occupied it at different moments in its trajectory, whose cross references and relationships are shaping the sense of the study of the past of the Atacama desert.

This article explores, theoretically and empirically, the possibilities of understanding the territory as a horizon for action and not only as a given reality. This turn involves addressing how different social actors organize their actions on "the same territory" without considering "the same territory" as the object of those actions. Using as a case study the new Chilean energy policy that, in less than a decade, left aside the mega-projects of reservoirs privileging the run-of-river power plants, we describe the activation of a new geography of economic interest in the mountain range of the center-south of Chile. A temporal analysis describes three periods differentiated by a clear productive-technological orientation of the projects. On the other hand, a territorial analysis shows how the technical model, of large reservoir plants and small run-of-river plants, describes new, extended and saturated, territoriality in the Chilean central-south Andes. Thus, we propose that the creation of new territorialities of economic interest will be at the base of many contemporary socio-environmental conflicts where the territorial horizons of action for different social actors are divergent. 

En los últimos años el Archipiélago de Chiloé sufre crisis hídricas estivales, a pesar de las intensas lluvias de invierno. La situación ha sido reconocida por el Estado y los gobiernos de turno, adoptando como principal medida la provisión de agua para uso humano en camiones aljibe. Para enfrentar este problema se propuso un trabajo a escala territorial local, realizando un diagnóstico socio-ecológico de la localidad rural de Catruman para evaluar la demanda de agua y las causas de la escasez hídrica. Se identificaron microcuencas abastecedoras de agua y se estableció un trabajo participativo, que incluye a habitantes y gobiernos locales, basado en los principios del manejo ecosistémico adaptativo. Se diseñó una Red Participativa de Agua Rural, que incluye una planificación territorial participativa a escala de microcuenca, monitoreo hidrológico, una red de distribución de agua potable de bajo costo y un humedal artificial depurador de aguas contaminadas. Se realizaron asambleas, capacitaciones y mingas, reconociendo e integrando el saber local. Esta iniciativa es un modelo de intervención territorial de largo plazo, a escala de microcuenca, flexible, escalable y replicable en otros territorios del sur de Chile.

Las expediciones del siglo XIX contribuyeron al reconocimiento del territorio, su ocupación y dominación; se enmarcan en el desarrollo del capitalismo y la conformación del Estado-nación. Se buscó analizar los viajes a la Araucanía con motivos científicos, económicos, aventura y ocio durante el siglo XIX y reconocer su aporte al conocimiento del territorio y a la construcción de un imaginario geográfico, mediante las valoraciones que hicieron de los atributos naturales y culturales en dichos testimonios. Se concluye que los viajeros cumplieron un rol clave en la transformación del imaginario preexistente en la Araucanía, por uno asociado al discurso modernizador del Estado chileno, en torno a ocupar, dominar e integrar este territorio a circuitos globales de intercambio, no sólo ganadero, agrícola o forestal, sino que también turístico.  

This article is the first approach of an investigation that seeks to understand the discordance between the design of common spaces of social condominiums and the ways their inhabitants living them. The approach is characterized by two conceptual shifts: firstly, a transit from the isolated consideration of the dwelling to a directed attention of the common spaces and, secondly, from the expert point of view to the consideration of the experience of the inhabitants. Recognizing that housing transformations have been extensively studied, it is intended to generate knowledge regarding the way in which the inhabitants react to anomalies in common spaces, driven socio-spatially stabilizations given by “informal” interventions. Some of these adaptive strategies and the case of a land grab are shown, showing how these strategies are deployed, what resources are mobilized, their repercussions in space and in the patterns of community organization additionally to the possibilities of learning for public policy.

During the period 1916-1929, the Spanish aeronautical industry was linked to the demand of military aircrafts. It had been created in a process of import substitution that was particularly intense during the First World War. At the beginning, this industry fried to achieve autarchy by developing its own technology but after 1923 the State decided to purchase foreign patents. The essay tries to assess the size this industry, and the resulting figures confirm its modest scale of operation due to the very low level of public finding. Nevertheless, the existence of this sector was the sign of a relative degree of modernization of the Spanish economy during the first thirty years of the twentieth century. The article argues that the fast assimilation of foreign techniques in the building and design of aircraftas and engines, and even the development of original models would not have been possible without a previous development the engineering industry. Lastly, the application of the Wolff law allows to suggest that the public sector lost an excellent chance to fasten some of the more competitive lines of this industry in the twenties. However, the technical transformations in the industry implied by the appearance of metallic aircrafts, and adverse circumstances in the international markets for military aircrafts condemned this industry to technical dependence on foreign firms.

The Planas, former manufacturers of cotton thread, began to produce the French turbine Fontaine Girona in 1858. Since I887 they also produced electric material with licence of the firm Ganz, from Budapest. The Planas undertaking prospered unti1 1910, and contributed remarkably to the development of the Catalan cotton industry and the Spanish paper and electric industries. After this period, the decline of hydromechanical power favoured hydroelectricity. The change of the scale of turbines, generators and other machines, were problerns that thefirm, moved to Barcelone, was unable to face. The big Spanish power stations were equipped with foreign material, and Planas was absorbed by the French firm Neyrpic in 1949.