AN INSIDE SUN: LICKANANTAY VULCANOLOGY IN THE SALAR DE ATACAMAUN SOL INTERIOR: VULCANOLOGÍA LICKANANTAY EN EL SALAR DE ATACAMA
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Date
2023
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Springer
Abstract
© 2023, Corporation for the Management and Reduction of Disaster Risk in Chile (GRID-Chile). All rights reserved.Having lived alongside the geological dynamism of the Salar de Atacama (Chile) basin for millennia, the Lickanantay people have accumulated abundant observational and ceremonial data about the volcanic nature that surrounds them and the participation of volcanoes in broader processes of cosmoecological formation. However, Western volcanology has not established a substantive dialogue with this knowledge. Through cross-cultural collaboration, this article exposes what we call ‘Lickanantay volcanology’—or the Lickanantay system of knowledge about volcanoes, volcano-human relationships, and geocosmic interdependence—with the aim of making it available to the general volcanological community. First, we describe the basic features of Lickanantay volcanology. We then turn to the El Tatio geothermal field to provide a situated approach. Finally, we outline some elements for volcanic risk management from a Lickanantay perspective. In our conclusions we suggest that Lickanantay volcanology invites us to think of the ‘indigenous’ not as a finite set of knowledges and practices but as a demand for territorial and epistemological autonomy, and that it is only by recognizing this demand that volcanology will be able to respond to the call for the decolonization of science.
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Keywords
Chile, Decolonization, El Tatio, Indigenous vulcanology, Lickanantay knowledge, Salar de Atacama, Volcanic risk management