Abstract

The pandemic reaches the Andean foothills at a time of profound territorial transformations. Nothing is neutral about its arrival, and the institutional apparatus set up to control it brings consequences that, in their deployment, reflect the deepening of the privatization processes that have governed the territory throughout its history and with particular severity during the last decade. The Maule Mountain range, the setting considered for this study, remained invisible for much of the regional history centered on the valleys. With export agriculture, forest plantations, and hydroelectric generation, the mountain range has acquired greater economic visibility. The dispossession of people’s lands results from the economic exploitation of mountains’ resources. The ethnographic perspective of intensified processes in a pandemic world highlights hydropower’s role in local dynamics and the resistance it creates among residents. It is installing new common meanings or searching for alternatives in the face of advanced extractivist. As a result of these transformations, the symbolic representation of the mountain as a border becomes real. At the same time, its emancipatory potential is based on the subjectivity of those alienated from it. © (2023), (Universidad de Tarapaca). All Rights Reserved.