Abstract

This article analyzes the historical evolution of Atacama regarding muleteering and agrarian development over four centuries based on both published and unpublished sources. It presents the changes and continuities throughout various administrations, their effects on the regional process, the ideology of power and its policies, Indigenous agency, material conditioning factors, and structural contradictions. The study allows to understand the articulation between forms of domination and Indigenous societies in the conformation of the agro-mining landscapes of a border space, conceived as hostile and with a persistent extractive orientation.