Struggles for the defence of territories and decolonial politics in Southern Chile

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the emergence of decolonial political subjectivities in the struggle for the defence of territories and against extractivism in Greater Concepción, Chile. Drawing on a dialogue between decolonial and feminist scholarship, Latin American political ecology, and the praxis of Chilean socioenvironmental movements, we argue that the struggles for the defence of territories in Abya Yala cannot be understood through the lens of modern citizenship, as they are embracing territorialized, racialised, and feminized struggles that challenge the ontological and epistemological foundations of capitalist coloniality. This contribution is informed by participatory action research, militant ethnography, and a commitment to ‘sentipensar’ the defence of Mother Earth. Our findings suggest that the feminization of the struggle, embracing of ancestral ontologies and cosmologies, and decolonization of knowledge production are three features currently shaping decolonial political subjectivities in southern Chile, opening radical possibilities of transformation.