Huilliche energy. Experiments in integration and ontological disagreements in a wind farm

Abstract

The island of Chiloé, in southern Chile, was the mise-en-scene of an unprecedented project: the development of a wind farm in which the Hulliche community, the ancestral people of the area, would own and run the operation. With the support of the Inter-American Development Bank, the aim of the project was the production of sustainable and renewable energies, but more importantly the integration of indigenous communities into the Chilean society via their participation in a high-value economic enterprise. Drawing on the idea of citizen participation as a form of experimentation, in this article we follow ethnographically the process of incubation, development and failure of this project. The case, we argue, allows a reflection about the risk of cultural aggression embedded in participatory experiments, but also about their capacities to crack open productive spaces for identity, political and ethical speculation. We coin the term “ontological disagreements” to indicate the ambivalences of participatory experiments and to debate about the future of indigenous engagement in energy projects.