Since the mid-twentieth century, Latin American rural territories have undergone significant transformations. One of the leading causes is the expansion of large-scale operations that exploit natural resources for world market exportation with low processing. In this paper, we study the changes in agricultural activities, livestock, and land use in the Calama oasis (the Atacama Desert, northern Chile) in relation to the growth of large-scale copper mining and other chained processes (urbanization and increased demand for water resources); based on a mixed methodology combining descriptive statistics, archival and bibliographic review, ethnography, and spatial analysis. We present the results through a historical reconstruction of the analyzed dimensions and their relationships, accounting for contradictory dynamics in time and space. We identify how mining and urban growth promote some agricultural and livestock activities under certain economic and political conditions, while in other contexts, these activities have been severely weakened, seeing increasing urbanization of rural land, rural-urban pluriactivity, and a growing deagrarianization.

The Province of El Loa, historically inhabited by the Andean population dedicated to agriculture, herding and exchange activities, has occupied a strategic place in the expansion of Chilean copper industry and its international insertion. Here is located Chuquicamata, the largest copper mine in the world by an important part of the 20th century. To advance in the understanding of the territory that produces this activity, we carry out a historical-structural analysis of the agriculture practiced in the province between 1929/30 and 2006/07. We characterize analytically the agrarian transformations of the area relating their development with the expansion of the great copper mining. Theoretically, we position ourselves from the paradigm of the agrarian question, which we re-problematize by linking it with the studies on extractivism. Methodologically we use descriptive statistics of agricultural censuses for the characterization of the agrarian structure, and historical and secondary sources that allow us to understand their connections with the copper exploitation.

Extractivism has marked the history of Latin America whose operations are in rural territories inhabited mainly by indigenous populations. Mining has had a remarkable expansion in rural territories of the Andes. Critical studies of these processes have focused on the disruptive aspects and conflict between companies, local populations, and States. However, mining has also been intertwined with the territories based on contradictory relationships at different timescales. To examine this issue, we carried out a historical reconstruction of the productive practices of the Caspana community indigenous (northern Chile) and their different forms of connection with mining development. We combine diverse data sources and methodological approaches: oral histories obtained from ethnography, censuses, explorers’ records, and academic literature. We identify different types of relationships over time, according to the different forms of indigenous participation in the extractive markets and the deployment and rearrangement of diverse economic strategies by the indigenous population.

Presentamos los resultados de un estudio exploratorio y cualitativo acerca de las transformaciones agrarias y los conflictos hídricos que han emergido en las últimas tres décadas entre localidades históricamente agrícolas y grandes empresas mineras en el norte de Chile. Investigamos en tres casos de estudio: Quillagua (comuna María Elena, Región de Antofagasta), Peine (comuna San Pedro de Atacama, Región de Antofagasta) y Los Loros (comuna Tierra Amarilla, Región de Atacama). A partir del discurso de los entrevistados, efectuamos una reconstrucción histórica de los cambios centrándonos en tres dimensiones interrelacionadas que permiten abordar el problema: características de las actividades agropecuarias, presencia y vínculos con la minería, y situación de los recursos hídricos. Palabras claves: gran minería, localidades agrícolas, conflictos hídricos, norte de Chile. We present the results of an exploratory and qualitative research about on the agrarian transformations and the water conflicts that emerged the last three decades between localities historically agrarian and large mining companies in northern Chile. This research consists of three case studies: Quillagua (Municipality of María Elena, Antofagasta Region), Peine (Municipality of San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta Region) and Los Loros (Municipality of Tierra Amarilla, Atacama Region). Based on the interviewees's discourse, we elaborate a historical reconstruction of the changes, focussing on three interrelated dimensions that tackle the problem: characteristics of agricultural activities, presence and ties to mining, and the situation of the hydric resources.