Abstract

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.