The Araucania Region and the construction of the south in Chile, 1880-1950. Tourism and transport routes

Abstract

The shaping of national territory constituted one of the main tasks of the Chilean State following Independence. The expansion towards the north, which resulted in the War of the Pacific, and towards the indigenous lands south of the river Bio Bio took place within this context characterised by large-scale military deployment, to which other mechanisms were added with a view to occupying, controlling and transforming both the space and those who inhabited it. In this way, the disarticulation of the old Mapuche territory, the Araucania, and its rearticulation as a newly designed national territory, Southern Chile, constituted a long and complex process undertaken by the State. In this study, analysis centres on transport routes as a decisive instrument in north-south spacial reorientation, and as a facilitator of tourism, one of the expressions of the new territoriality.