Abstract

We discuss daily conflicts between two different mining historicities that are currently stressed in the city of Iquique: the saltpeter historicity and the copper historicity. We point out those conflicts through the following of mine workers commuting, whose daily movements put the local past and present in stress with each other, since their work dy-namics today constantly modify the city of yesterday. Based on critical notions about the production of space and time, we understand urban space as an interrelation of mobility practices, while historicity as a socio-spatial production of historical time. Based on a multi-local ethnographic methodology, our results point to growing conflicts between the saltpeter and copper historicity in Iquique; specifically inscribed in dissimilar infras-tructures, practices, and meanings.