La necroeconomía de la generación de electricidad para la minería. El impacto comunitario del uso del petcoke en Tocopilla (Chile, 2000-2015)
La necroeconomía de la generación de electricidad para la minería. El impacto comunitario del uso del petcoke en Tocopilla (Chile, 2000-2015)
Authors
Galaz-Mandakovic, Damir
Profesor Guía
Authors
Date
2021
Datos de publicación:
10.7770/CUHSO-V31n2-art2155
Cultura, Hombre, Sociedad (CUHSO), Vol.31, N°2, 212-249, 2021
Cultura, Hombre, Sociedad (CUHSO), Vol.31, N°2, 212-249, 2021
Tipo de recurso
Artículo de Revista
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades
Keywords
Tocopilla - Termoeléctricas - Minería del cobre - Contaminación - Necroeconomía
Materia geográfica
Chile
Tocopilla
Tocopilla
Collections
Abstract
Desde una metodología historiográfica y una hermenéutica an-tropológica, en este artículo se describe y analiza un proceso derivado de la gran minería del cobre y de la generación de energía eléctrica necesaria para desarrollarla en el primer lustro el siglo XXI. Dichos regímenes productivos, en el marco de la competitividad comercial, derivaron en una necroeconomía a través de la introducción del petcoke como combustible en las termoeléctricas. El petcoke estructuró una fuerte precarización socioambiental y forjó la producción de una subsidiariedad territorial y comunitaria; es decir, la población de Tocopilla tuvo que respirar, soportar y sufrir los efectos ambientales y corporales de las decisiones productivas, las cuales estaban amparadas por agentes del Estado subsumidos y por la debilidad en la regulación medioambiental. Hablar de necroeconomía es visibilizar una de las funciones adversas del capitalismo y sus agentes subalternos en la política, el cual produce una población superflua, que ya no es necesario “explotar” sino que gestionar: una manera de disponer de estos excedentes de población es exponerlos a todo tipo de peligros y riesgos. De ese modo, se jerarquiza la vulnerabilidad y la muerte y se construye la desechabilidad en algunos grupos sociales a través de violencia lenta o de estallidos densos sobre “subconjuntos” de humanidad clasificados en un nivel inferior. Así, los sujetos de derechos, devienen en sujetos de desechos, y también en sujetos de muerte. Es decir, personas que, por factores economicistas ajenos, y de pronto invisibles, dejaron de ser parte del mundo social y fueron excluidos de las normas que velan por la protección vital.
From a historiographic methodology and an anthropoloical herme-neutic, this article describes and analyzes a process derived from large-scale copper mining and the generation of electrical energy. necessary to develop it, in the first five years of the 21st century. This production regime, within the framework of commercial competitiveness, led to a necroeconomy through the introduction of petcoke ,as fuel in thermoelectric plants, This fuel struc-tured a strong socio-environmental precariousness and forged the production of a territorial and community subsidiarity. In other words, Tocopilla popula-tion had to breathe, endure, and suffer the environmental and bodily effects of productive decisions, which were protected by subsumed state agents and by weakness in environmental regulation. To speak of necroeconomics is to make one of the adverse functions of capitalism and its subordinate agents in poli-tics visible, which produces a superfluous population, no longer necessary to “exploit” but rather manage — one way of getting these population surpluses is exposing them to all kinds of dangers and risks. In this way, vulnerability and death are hierarchized and disposability is built in some social groups through slow violence or dense outbreaks on "subsets" of humanity classified at a lower level. Thus, the subjects of rights, become subjects of waste, and also subjects of death; in other words, people who, due to foreign and suddenly invisible economic factors, ceased to be part of the social world and were excluded from the norms that ensure vital protection.
From a historiographic methodology and an anthropoloical herme-neutic, this article describes and analyzes a process derived from large-scale copper mining and the generation of electrical energy. necessary to develop it, in the first five years of the 21st century. This production regime, within the framework of commercial competitiveness, led to a necroeconomy through the introduction of petcoke ,as fuel in thermoelectric plants, This fuel struc-tured a strong socio-environmental precariousness and forged the production of a territorial and community subsidiarity. In other words, Tocopilla popula-tion had to breathe, endure, and suffer the environmental and bodily effects of productive decisions, which were protected by subsumed state agents and by weakness in environmental regulation. To speak of necroeconomics is to make one of the adverse functions of capitalism and its subordinate agents in poli-tics visible, which produces a superfluous population, no longer necessary to “exploit” but rather manage — one way of getting these population surpluses is exposing them to all kinds of dangers and risks. In this way, vulnerability and death are hierarchized and disposability is built in some social groups through slow violence or dense outbreaks on "subsets" of humanity classified at a lower level. Thus, the subjects of rights, become subjects of waste, and also subjects of death; in other words, people who, due to foreign and suddenly invisible economic factors, ceased to be part of the social world and were excluded from the norms that ensure vital protection.