Resumen

RODRIGUEZ TORRENT, Juan Carlos; MIRANDA BOWN, Pablo  y  MEDINA HERNANDEZ, Patricio. MINING CULTURES AND VITAL PROJECTS IN CITIES OF COAL, NITRATE AND COPPER IN CHILE. Chungará (Arica) [online]. 2012, vol.44, n.1, pp. 145-162. ISSN 0717-7356.  doi: 10.4067/S0717-73562012000100011.

In the coal, nitrate and copper mining towns of Chile, we find a particular social identity. Social reproduction arises not only from mineral exploitation, but from the existence of mining towns associated with a concentrated, captive and stable population. The enormous developments in mining during the 20^th century, the globalized economy, the crises and cycles of minerals, the fluctuations in prices, the necessity for efficiency and profitability of the companies have made these towns dysfunctional for business objectives and have put the peoples' ways of life and identities have been put into question. The proposed solutions have been to restructure the population and close and abandon the cities, transforming them into camps or turning them into heritage. Consequently, the continuity of a work culture, the social tissue and forms of socialization of the inhabitants have been broken. Some of the transformations and declines in urban formats of these settlements and the shift toward viewing them as heritage are examined based on the authors' varied fieldwork on mining towns as well as new ethnographic, ethnological and historical records in II, III, VI and VIII regions, as a response to the new features of capital.

Palabras clave : Work culture; way of life; mining cycle; imaginary; heritage-making.