The arrival of lithium mining in the Salar de Atacama and its early relationship with Atacameno communities: workers, mining camps and paternalism (Chile, 1962-1998)

The Salar de Atacama lithium deposit was South America's first brine mining site. The arrival of non-metallic mining in the 1980s and 1990s interrupted the diverse cultural practices that the Atacameno communities had previously established around this shared asset. This article aims to understand this territorial transformation by analyzing the ties between the local communities and the Salar de Atacama ecosystem prior to the arrival of lithium mining, the installation process and the industry's early relationship with the Atacameno people. It proposes a periodization that spans from 1962 to 1998 and includes the discovery of the deposit, exploration, mine construction and the initial production phase. Theoretically, the phenomenon is interpreted through the concepts of commons and extractivism. In methodological terms, a review of press archives, ethnography and secondary sources form the basis for this qualitative research. We conclude that the meta-narrative of progress and development through mining did not materialize in this initial stage. However, the communities did have to face the first socio-environmental consequences of mining based on dispossession.