Dwelling in traveling: an anthropological aproximation to Chilean Northern Patagonia

Abstract

This paper aims at presenting some relevant historical and social features of the marginalized colonial settlers of Chilean Northern Patagonia, while at the same time proposing anthropological conceptual tools that could guide the ethnographic comprehension of this social context. Drawing on ethnographic material, the paper analyses the histories of colonization, the practice of cattle driving, the fabrication of tiles made of alerce wood and the work-migrations to Southern Patagonia as features that shape a territorialized sense of belonging. These aspects are interpreted at the light of the theories of Tim Ingold and James Clifford, highlighting peculiarities as well as common grounds of the two apparently antithetic perspectives. The two authors coincide in criticizing genealogical and essentialists’ concepts of culture while emphasising movement as the crucial element in the generation of life and cultures. These notions appear as particularly fitting for analysing a frontier territory with a history of intense displacements that blur ethnic and national identities.