Landscapes of Dispossession: Extractivism and Forced Displacement Triggered by Tailings Dams

Historically dependent on mining extractivism, Chile faces escalating socio-environmental conflicts driven by large-scale mining. In this context, tailings dams not only concentrate toxic waste but also generate dynamics of forced displacement that affect human and extrahuman communities. From an ecopolitical perspective and drawing on Actor–Network Theory, this study analyzes the expansion of Minera Los Pelambres’ El Mauro tailings dam—the largest in South America—showing how it reconfigures life landscapes in the Norte Chico. Through critical cartographies, the research participatively reconstructs socio-ecological memories of displacement and latent migration, mapping resistances and reterritorializations in Villa El Mauro, Caimanes, and Pupío. The tailings dam is introduced as an agent of extractive expansion that produces processes of accumulation by dispossession and new forms of displacement and uncertainty associated with reterritorialization in the Capitalocene.