Resurgent Indigenous property: The quiet spatio-legal work of re-entangling indigenous property relations in Santiago de Chile

Abstract

This paper discusses the understudied topic of Indigenous claim-making in urban space. It looks at these marginalised Indigenous property expressions in a Latin American city as the encounter of different spatio-legal world-making processes. Official actors reiteratively perform absolute property as a marketable object whereas marginalised Indigenous groups seek to re-entangle property in social, cultural, and political relations. The paper analyses the example of Mapuche associations that secure temporary access to urban land in Santiago de Chile to build rukas (traditional straw-roofed houses). Semi-structured interviews at 10 rukas reveal the way official precarium contracts bracket property and thus serve as a form of governance. Simultaneously Indigenous associations re-entangle property relations to provide a place of gathering for the local urban Mapuche population and contribute to territorial struggles in rural areas in the South of the country. The findings of the paper show how marginalised groups’ spatial and legal work re-entangling property increases its resilience.