Bread for today, hunger for tomorrow. Social impacts of community development agreements in the North of Chile

Abstract

Negotiations and Community Development Agreements (CDA) are a problematic feature in light of indigenous culture because they give the green light to territorial destruction by mining, but also mean the possibility to build other adaptive capacities of an already damaged indigenous culture. Thus, this paper describes some of the effects of negotiation and CDA for indigenous and the corporate sector. While mining companies are trying to obtain their Social License, indigenous communities are forging life projects with the financial support of mining. While the former, is part of the general discourse of CSR as a new version of capitalists’ engagement with local communities, indigenous groups are deploying different strategies to improve their position in an unfavorable institutional scenario. The key hypothesis of this work is that indigenous life in the North needs to be understood in their deep historical relationship with the Chilean State, and -since regaining of democracy- with the mining companies.