Abstract

This paper proposes a description of the newforms of political subjectivity in the Age of Multiculturalism. During the last three decades, in Latin America and Chile ethnic groups have accessed to a new political scenario produced by their legal recognition. The recognition of the ethnic diversity has been a continental achievement; however this democratic conquest had to face very early the ethnopolitical conflicts of diversity itself. One thing is diversity as a pluralistic system of cultural forms, quite another is the complex scenario of interactions and constraints, which makes (or makes not)possible diversity in politics. Therefore, this study explores the main issues on cultural diversity in Atacama, how ethnicity is constructed and who are their intervening actors. It also delves into the analysis of ethnification as an administrative process of differentiation and inclusion of people with heterogeneous cultural qualities. Thus we attempt to show a field or a specific social structure that displays an ethnogenesis process andAtacamenian form of ethnopolitics in northern Chile.