The Racial Politics of Chilean 19th-Century Settler-Colonial Policies

In Chile, recent public discussions in scholarly and activist circles have begun to describe the Chilean state as racist and its expansionist policies as settler colonial. However, uncertainty and discrepancies emerge when defining who is at the top of Chile's racial hierarchy. Migrant groups like Negrocentricxs use the term "mestizo-blanco," while the Mapuche use "mestizo-criollo." Do they mean the same thing? Scholars (Illanes 2003; Waldman 2004; Bengoa 2009; Coletta 2018) have noted the Chilean elite's reluctance to embrace a common white identity to maintain their distinct European heritages while negating the inclusion of mestizo or Indigenous identity within the national imagination. Green Rioja will examine Chile's shifting 19th-century racial discourses alongside present discussions about race in Chile. To do so, the paper scrutinizes the usefulness and limits of utilizing "whiteness" and "white supremacy" when describing race relations in Araucania (ancestral Mapuche lands) versus Santiago (the Chilean capital).