Environmental Conflicts and Historical Political Ecology: a Genealogy of the Construction of Dams in Chilean Patagonia
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Environmental Conflicts and Historical Political Ecology: A Genealogy of the Construction of Dams in Chilean Patagonia A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of PhD in Human Geography In the Faculty of Humanities 2013 Hugo Ivan Romero Department of Geography School of Environment and Development CONTENTS ABSTRACT DECLARATION COPYRIGHT STATEMENT Dedication Acknowledgment Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1. Environmental Conflicts in Historical Political Ecology 1.1. Introduction 1.2. Research Scope: Socio-Nature Relations 1.3. Environmental Conflicts 1.3.1. Apolitical environmental conflicts 1.3.2. Political ecology 1.4. Historical Political Ecology 1.5. A Historical Political Ecology Approach to the Construction of Dams in Patagonia 1.5.1. Discourse and discursive formation: framing dams 1.5.2. Discursive ecological formations: framing Patagonia 1.5.3. Territorialisation: discursive and material practices 1.5.4. Governmentality and environmentality: Summary Chapter 2. Research Design and Methodology 2.1. Research Questions and Objectives 2.2. Genealogy and Critical Discourse Analysis 2.3. Grounded Theory and Situation Analysis 2.4. Model of Analysis Summary Chapter 3. Imagination and Liberation of Patagonia: the Territorialisation of the Colonial State 3.1. The Processes of Imagining Patagonia 3.1.1. Actors, subjects and objects 3.1.2. Normalisation of places and subjects 3.1.3. The City of Caesars 3.2. The Process of Liberating Patagonia 3.2.1. Liberation by the Church 3.2.2. Liberation by Science Summary Chapter 4. Occupation and Circulation of Patagonia The Social Movement of Aysén 4.1. The Transition from Imagination to Occupation 4.2. “Damn Patagonia” (Patagonia Maldita) 4.3. The Pioneers and the “Discovery” of Western Patagonia 4.5. Territorialisations 4.5.1. The Market 4.5.2. Spontaneous territorialisation 4.5.3. “Chileanisation” 4.5.4. Intervention of the state Summary Chapter 5. The Territorialisation of Hydropower in Patagonia 5.1. A Genealogy of Neoliberal Hydropower in Chile 5.1.1. Destabilisation of the modernisation myth 5.1.2. The Construction of state “otherness” 5.1.3. The “purification” of water: The construction of water as a commodity 5.1.4. Regulating the Deregulation: The Creation of the SIC 5.1.5. Deconcentration, deregulation and privatisation 5.1.6. The physical expansion of hydroelectricity 5.2. “Hydropower” 5.2.1. Hydroelectricity 5.2.2. The HidroAysén Project Summary Chapter 6. Counter-territorialisations in Chilean Patagonia 6.1. The Emergence of “Ecopower” 6.1.1. Institutional construction 6.1.2. The environmentalist organizations 6.1.3. Ecopower and Patagonian discourse 6.1.4. The contradictions of Chilean public policy according to ecopower 6.1.5. The commodification of the Patagonian landscape 6.2. The Discourse of Inequalities 6.2.1. Discourses of the occupation process 6.2.2. Discourses related to tourism 6.2.3. Discourses in semi-urban areas 6.2.4. Polarisation Summary CONCLUSION Findings Implications Word Count: 85,398 FIGURES FIGURE N°1. LOCATION OF AYSÉN REGION AND HYDROELECTRICITY PROJECTS WITHIN CHILE FIGURE N° 2. CAVALCADE PATAGONIA WITHOUT DAMS, COYHAIQUE (2007) FIGURE N° 3. ICONIC POSTER OF THE CAMPAIGN “PATAGONIA WITHOUT DAMS” FIGURE N° 4. PROTECTED AREAS IN AYSÉN REGION FIGURE N° 5. DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE HIDROAYSEN PROJECT, SANTIAGO 28TH MAY, 2011 FIGURE N° 6. EARLIEST REPRESENTATIONS OF AMERICA, THE WESTERN PART OF THE CONTINENT REMAINS INVISIBLE FIGURE N° 7. REPRESENTATIONS OF PATAGONIA POPULATED BY GIANTS BETWEEN THE 16th AND 17th CENTURIES FIGURE N° 8. THE PATAGONIANS BETWEEN THE 16TH AND THE 18TH CENTURY FIGURE N° 9. CLASH BETWEEN THE EXPEDITION OF VAN NOORT AND THE SELK’NAM, 1599 FIGURE N° 10. THE CITY OF CAESARS FIGURE N° 11. LOCATION OF THE CITY OF CAESARS FIGURE N° 13. CHILOÉ ISLAND, PLACE FROM WHERE THE JESUITS EXPLORED PATAGONIA FIGURE N° 12. FROM CHILOÉ ISLAND TO NAHUELHUAPI (in red) FIGURE N° 14. SOUTH AMERICA, BETWEEN THE 18th AND 19th CENTURIES, SHOWING PATAGONIA AS A COUNTRY FIGURE Nº 15. IMAGES OF THE SOCIAL CONFLICT OF AYSEN, FEBRUARY-MARCH 2012 FIGURE Nº 16. REPRESENTATIONS OF PATAGONIA BY BYRON FIGURE Nº 17. REPRESENTATIONS OF PATAGONIA BY MUSTERS FIGURE Nº18. PATAGONIA IN THE 19th CENTURY FIGURE Nº 19. IMAGES OF HANS STEFFEN’S EXPLORATIONS (1910) FIGURE Nº 20. OCCUPATION OF AYSEN BY CATTLE COMPANIES BETWEEN 1900-1940 FIGURE Nº 21. THE CATTLE COMPANIES: THE INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY OF AYSEN, BAKER EXPLOITER COMPANY, AND CISNES CATTLE SOCIETY FIGURE Nº 22. SPONTANEOUS SETTLERS IN BAKER (1930s) FIGURE Nº 23. GERMAN SETTLERS IN PUYUHUAPI (1930s) FIGURE N° 24. REGION OF AYSÉN OF THE GENERAL CARLOS IBAÑEZ DEL CAMPO FIGURE Nº 25. THE BALMACEDA SCHOOL (1929) FIGURE Nº 26. COYHAIQUE (1940s) FIGURE Nº 27. THE AUSTRAL ROAD FIGURE Nº 28. CALETA TORTEL FIGURE Nº 29. VILLA O’HIGGINS FIGURE Nº 30. ELECTRIC GRID IN CHILE FIGURE Nº 32. INTERCONNECTED CENTRAL SYSTEM (SIC) FIGURE Nº 33. HYDROPOWER PROJECTS IN PATAGONIA FIGURE Nº 34. THE HIDROAYSÉN PROJECT: LOCALISATION OF THE FIVE DAMS FIGURE N° 35. HIDROAYSEN CAMPAIGN: CLEAN, RENEWABLE AND CHILEAN FIGURE N° 36. PRICE OF RESIDENTIAL ENERGY CHILE AND OCDE FIGURE N° 37. DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST THE HIDROAYSÉN PROJECT IN SANTIAGO FIGURE N° 38. HIDROAYSEN’S PROPAGANDA IN REGIONAL NEWSPAPERS FIGURE N° 39. CAMPAIGN “PATAGONIA SIN REPRESAS” FIGURE N° 40. PATAGONIAN TOURIST LANDSCAPE FIGURE N° 41. PATAGONIANS ACCORDING TO THE DOMINANT DISCOURSES CHARTS CHART N°1. THE OPENING UP AND PRIVATISATION OF ENDESA AND COLBÚN CHART N° 2. PERCENT OF COMPANIES’ PARTICIPATION IN THE INTERCONNECTED CENTRAL SYSTEM (SIC) CHART N° 3. ENDESA’S ELECTRIC PLANTS (AT DECEMBER 2012) CHART N° 4. COLBÚN’S ELECTRIC PLANTS (at December 2012) CHART N° 5. GENER’S ELECTRIC PLANTS (at December 2012) CHART N° 6. PARTICIPATION OF THE MAIN CHILEAN ECONOMIC GROUPS BY SECTOR CHART N° 7. PART OF THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC STRUCTURE IN THE ELECTRICITY SECTOR CHART N° 8. ORGANISATIONS TAKING PART IN PATAGONIA SIN REPRESAS CHART N° 9. LOCAL ORGANISATIONS IN AYSÉN AGAINST DAMS ABSTRACT This research aims to understand environmental conflicts generated by large investment projects. Theoretically, this research locates itself within the historical political ecology perspective. It seeks to understand environmental conflicts as a clash of historical representations over the environment that can be traced from the process of dispossession by colonialism and the consolidation of the national state. It is argued that certain places have been constructed as specific socio-natural entities for the reproduction of power relations over nature and people through environmental transformations by discourses and frameworks about environment and society, the establishment of material practices, and the collapsing of biophysical features within political-economy. The case under analysis is the construction of dams in Chilean Patagonia through the HidroAysén project. This project belongs to the transnational company ENDESA and the Chilean private company Colbún. HidroAysén aims to build five dams across two rivers located in the Aysén region in Western Patagonia, a region that has been a scene for the territorialisation of the colonial and postcolonial state over the last four hundred years. The research questions to understand this environmental conflict are: How has Chilean Patagonia been socially constructed in the past? What political economic conditions and discourses enable dams to be built in Chilean Patagonia? Which discourses are in conflict regarding the HidroAysén Project? This research follows a qualitative approach focused on Foucauldian genealogy to understand discourses and representations about the environment. Data have been collected through secondary sources about the history of Patagonia, including accounts from explorations, government reports, scholarly articles, information from the HidroAysén company, and information from the anti-dam campaign Patagonia without Dams. I have also used fifty interviews conducted in Patagonia with people who live in the places that could be affected by the construction of dams. Data have been analysed through the constructionist approach of grounded theory and critical discourse analysis. The main findings are that environmental conflicts have historical and cultural content. Patagonia is a cultural landscape created through the territorialisation of the colonial and postcolonial state, and at the same time, through a process of counter-territorialisation spontaneously performed by settlers. Elites have used Patagonia to increase their power in a material and symbolic way through the mobilization of pre-existing discourses. Therefore, Patagonia does not pre-exist its construction: there is nothing natural about Patagonia but a revisited history of otherness and dispossession. Consequently, environmental conflict over HidroAysén is not only about the hydroelectricity project, but about how territories are constructed and socially and environmentally transformed through the mobilization of representations. The conclusion is that the environmental transformations are one of the most severe forms of inequality. DECLARATION I, Hugo Ivan Romero, declare that no portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions