Sacrificial Extractivism and Unfinished Extinction in the Woodlands of Central Chile

• In Event: Finitude in Other Terms: Uncommoning Extinction - II

Abstract

During 2017’s summer, the small village of Santa Olga, in the coast of central Chile, was devastated by one of the largest wildfires ever occurred in the country. This catastrophe was, however and paradoxically, what made Santa Olga exist for the rest of Chilean society: when almost the entire village was reduced to ashes, it appeared ubiquitously in the media, mobilizing all kinds of material and humanitarian aid. Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out during the process of Santa Olga’s reconstruction, in this paper I explore the way people in Santa Olga reflect on the duality the devastation of their village--which is actually the devastation of themselves--has for them. On the one hand the wildfire is experienced as a ‘capitalist sacrifice’, in which they are reduced to something to be burnt in the benefit of the timber industry. On the other, when they are on the edge of disappearance, because of the wildfire itself, they obtain nationwide notoriety, triggering a multiplicity of relations that allows them to survive. Through ethnographically exploring this duality, framed by a heavy dependence on the extractive industry that has completely transformed the area, even establishing the town of Santa Olga in first place, I reflect on a dense relatedness arisen by the wildfire, which eventually is what allows to avoid total devastation.

Author

• Marcelo Gonzalez Galvez, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile