Balancing Cultural Resistance and Political Accommodation: Urban Mapuche Organisations in Post-Democratic Chile

This presentation examines the narratives of interculturality within urban Mapuche communities in post-democratic Chile, focusing on the challenges and resistance they face under the state’s neoliberal multicultural framework. Drawing on sustained ethnographic research conducted with urban Mapuche associations in Santiago—most of which are led by women—the paper explores the strategies these communities employ, such as ethno-bureaucracy and strategic essentialism, to engage with state institutions while simultaneously negotiating their identity and cultural practices in urban Chile today. The study highlights how neoliberal multiculturalism, while offering limited recognition of Indigenous rights, creates asymmetric power dynamics that result in both inclusion and exclusion, fragmenting the collective experience of urban Mapuche. Informed by critical multicultural and intercultural studies, the sociology of race and ethnicity, and an intersectional lens, this research contributes to discussions on how structural dispositions within the state shape Indigenous urban identities and the challenges of achieving truly symmetric intercultural exchanges.