Jobs and kindness: W.E. Rudolph's role in the shaping of perceptions of mining company-indigenous community relations in the Atacama Desert, Chile

Abstract

American capitalist interests in the Atacama Desert can be traced back to the early 20th century when Anaconda Mining Company acquired the mining operation of Chuquicamata in northern Chile, by then already the world's largest open-pit copper mine. Doing fieldwork in this same area, I heard stories from several elder villagers about an American engineer from Anaconda, a very kind “gringo” in their own words, that unlike other white people, remembered their names, asked them about their lives, and loved to take pictures. Doing research I found that one of the company's chief engineers in charge of exploring for water for mining operations, William E. Rudolph, extensively photographed the neighboring indigenous peoples’ environment and villages, wrote several survey reports exploring water and had written several papers for the American Geographical Society Review. Introducing the concept of ‘moral identity’, this paper explores how the humanitarian actions undertaken by individuals like William Edward Rudolph shaped the perceptions and expectations about mining expressed in the social memory of indigenous peoples in the Atacama Desert.