The route of Orion: Towards a deconstructive history of alien contact in Chile

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, I analyze a Chilean mining geoanalyst's narrative about large unrecognized geoglyphs he has charted in the Atacama Desert. The turns of this narrative take us through the Ancient Aliens hypothesis, but also an alterative pre-Inca migration route between the Atlantic and the Pacific thousands of years old, and in contravention to normative Andean archaeology. I argue that we need to look at alternative forms of history making that are not based on ontologically realist premises. Using Kleinberǵs notion of ‘past possibles’, based on Derrida's theory of historical deconstruction, I defend that in the mining expert´s narrative coexist a multiplicity of possible pasts, in oscillation between latent and manifest. I also look at the Desert itself, and its extractive industries, as well as a notion of ‘extreme’ in relation to temporal thinking, arguing that it is not enough to see the narrative on aliens as a result of neoliberal capitalist exploitation.