Araucana – Comahue: a transnational space of migration in Chile and Argentina

Abstract

This article explains the characteristics of transborder migration in the Araucanía-Comahue territory, located at the southern border of Chile and Argentina. Nowadays this territory is known as corridor, a name given in the framework of development policies promoted by nation-states to marginal spaces that had a late annexation to the national territory. But it should be noted that, already in the seventeenth century, this space communicated and
linked the inhabitants of the Wallmapu on each side of the Andes Mountains. So, the objective is to describe the indigenous human mobility documented by
historiography and the transnational dynamics and practices that are rescued from the experiences reported by Chileans and Argentines who migrated in
this area since the mid-twentieth century and who have used the same routes of the native people. The information collected shows that this transborder migration is a historical and current phenomenon that imposes challenges to the State today. That’s why the notion of the Araucanía-Comahue human corridor is proposed, which criticizes and complements the current idea of corridor.
Although the latter recognizes the historical exchange, it focuses on economic development and exchanges of goods, without taking into account the characteristics of human mobility, the historical reasons of its circulation, the current motivations and, therefore, the necessary conditions to favor the quality of life of those who travel through the mountain range