By Diego Valdivieso.

Published in 2020, in Cuadernos de Antropología Social.

Abstract :

This article explores how the technical work and bureaucratic decisions of front-line state officials implementing development programs participate in the production and circulation of identity and territorial categories. The execution of a participatory methodology for the production of ‘talking maps’ carried out by officials in charge of the Indigenous Territorial Development Program (PDTI) on Quehui Island, in the archipelago of Chiloé, strengthened the will of one of the users groups participating in the activity to form a neighbours association that represents their own interests. This ethnographic example illustrates how the decentralised state interferes in local political arenas through the application of identity categories and of a topographic approach that does not consider the porosity and permeability of territorial boundaries.

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