Public Policies and the Mapuche People: Gaps and Challenges for a Scanty Agenda

Abstract

In recent decades, indigenous peoples have come to prominence in public spaces due to a set of demands ranging from those linked to structural aspects to those of a more political and/or administrative character. In the case of Chile, such demands have increased in number without a corresponding response on the part of the state, whose decisions have focused on domestic security and on the intervention of the country’s indigenous communities by means of different actions. This is how year 2019 came to be marked by public policy decisions which only revealed, once more, the biases present in the visions involved in the drafting and implementation of indigenous policies. From the standpoint of public policy, and with a focus on the analysis of the Mapuche people, this piece of writing analyses the content and scope of policies implemented in 2019, exposing some relevant elements that put the relationship between the Chilean state and the indigenous peoples under strain.