Date of Award

Spring 6-10-2025

Document Type

Thesis (Undergraduate)

Department

Geography

First Advisor

Dr. Sarah Kelly

Second Advisor

Dr. Elizabeth Shoffner

Abstract

In the Wallmapu (ancestral Mapuche territory) of southern Chile, river and lakefront real estate development is often promoted by state institutions and developers as conservation or eco-tourism. However, these inmobiliaria projects are part of a longer trajectory of settler colonial jurisdiction, historically materialized through the dispossession of Mapuche-Williche territory. In the Maihue–Ranco subwatershed, this encroaching development are sparking increasing conflict with Mapuche-Williche lof (community), as developers and residents engage in extralegal practices—diverting waterways, denying access to lakefronts, surveilling mobility—that are fundamentally incompatible with Mapuche territorial order (Azmapu).

In this thesis I ask: (i) What spatial and legal strategies do riverfront developments and residents use to assert settler jurisdiction in the Maihue–Ranco watershed? (ii) What do the materializations of contested jurisdiction reveal about the structure and operation of settler colonialism? (iii) How do Mapuche-Williche lof contest settler jurisdiction through their ancestral waterways?

Through community-guided research methodologies—including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, walking and fluvial transects, and legal collaboration—this research identifies three key modes through which settler jurisdiction is enacted: (1) the commodification of land, water, and riparian life; (2) exclusionary property regimes enforced through fencing, surveillance, and access restrictions; and (3) violent spatial interventions that reshape rivers and shorelines. These settler practices align with historical strategies of land enclosure and “fence running,” a technique used to assert property expansion through physical boundaries and legal ambiguity (Di Giminiani, 2018; Klubock, 2014). Yet, these settler formations are not uncontested. Mapuche-Williche communities continue to assert their jurisdiction through Azmapu, Mapuche territorial order, particularly in defense of disrupted waterways.

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