Page McClean
Conectividades: The Histories and Futures of Chile’s Southern Highway
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Project Proposal:
The central question for my Fulbright research is how has the construction of the Carretera Austral enabled political, economic, and cultural processes that are transforming the connections built over the last century between people, place, and time in the Aysén Region? How are discourses of connectivity interpreted by Patagonians who pride themselves on living in an «isolated region» that is geographically and culturally distant from the capital? While the region’s early pioneros developed strong east-west cultural, commercial, and familial networks with Argentina, this north-south highway facilitates the infrastructure of the Chilean state. When the engineers of the Cuerpo Militar de Trabajo (CMT) dream of a future when the length of Chile is connected by pavement, many Ayseninos look to the past and envision new relationships with their regional histories. After two visits to Aysén to conduct preliminary fieldwork for my dissertation, I have become interested in connectivity as a discourse, practice, and phenomenon.
My professional goals are to teach and conduct anthropological research at the university level. While I am in Chile I will give talks to share my research at the newly inaugurated Universidad de Aysén in Coyhaique and the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Santiago. I will participate in local conferences and work with Prof. Andrés Núñez on a publication in Spanish. I have been invited by the Aysenino community of Lago Verde to collaborate on an oral history project, for which I will contribute my audiovisual skills. As a guitarist, I hope to play music and learn local folksongs through friends I made in Puerto Tranquilo this summer. Finally, having lived in several mountain communities, and through conversations with Patagonians that have worked on ranches in Colorado, I have become aware of issues around land ownership and use that affect both regions. After returning from my Fulbright research, I would like to further develop partnerships between Patagonia and the Rocky Mountains of the American West in order to promote cultural and knowledge exchange between rural mountain communities in both our countries.
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Proposal:
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