Studies of rural depopulation in Chile: approaches towards an analytical framework from Latin American political ecology

Abstract

The goal was to conduct a documentary review on rural depopulation in order to identify the main antecedents, trends and visions in studies in Latin America and other geographical spaces. Emphasis was placed on Chile to expose the way in which the relationship between extractivism and rural depopulation has been treated, with the intention of contrasting the results with the theoretical inputs of Latin American political ecology and proposing a comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon. Results show that, in Chile, factors historically driving the depopulation of rural areas include the military dictatorship, the territorial ordering plans, industrialization and urbanization, the transformation of the agrarian structure, climate change and extractivism. It was found that studies on this last factor have omitted the way in which depopulation occurs, regularly in contexts of unequal power structures and territorial tensions between different development models and ways of inhabiting space. The field of Latin American political ecology is proposed in order to address the processes of rural depopulation linked to extractivism, since its theoretical inputs can contribute to a broader understanding of the problem and to the construction of responses with and from the territories themselves.

Keywords:
Depopulation; Extractivism; Eco-territorial conflict; Space; Shrinking Rural; Rural decline