Determining Dialogue

The limited focus by the state of Chile on development dialogue for indigenous territories is disrespectful toward the inherent owners dispossessed by Chilean colonialism, and is an impediment to plurinationalism. As a signatory to ILO Convention 169, as well as to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Chilean government displays a remarkable state of ignorance, an ignorance that, says Milka Castro, professor of legal anthropology and interculturalism at the University of Chile law school, is intentionally cultivated. As anthropology professor Jose Bengoa notes, “Mapuche people are seeking a different relationship with Chilean society…What they want is a process of decolonization”.