Petroleum companies and cosmopolitical practices in Mapuche’s territory

Abstract

Despite the violence resulting from the military campaigns in the 19th century, which originated in the Argentine and Chilean federal territories, the Mapuche people remain “alive and standing”. In the north of the Argentina’s Patagonia, to be “alive and standing” implies a fight against oil companies in a relevant region for the production of hydrocarbons in Latin America. For the Mapuche, this fight is only possible because of the order of forces (newen) that shape and interconnect the planes of the cosmos, to which the persons belong. In this article, I will cover aspects of the Mapuche’s cosmopolitical practices related to the territory occupied by oil companies, including ones related to the Lanín volcano, as an active way of aligning themselves with this order.