Extractivism and disasters at the end of the world

This chapter explores the concept of ‘disaster’ and its connection with extractivism using evidence from the North of Chile. For decades, researchers have emphasised disasters as social constructs rooted in societal organisation. The vulnerability paradigm stresses that, while various hazards exist naturally, disasters are largely produced by society through the progression of vulnerabilities. Dominant and mainstream usages of the paradigm, however, perpetuate a nature/culture binary which emerges from Westernised assumptions of disasters. The chapter critiques this by examining how the Atacameño people in Northern Chile experience disasters, particularly in the context of historical processes of extractivism. The analysis challenges the notion of disaster as a combination of separate human and natural processes, proposing instead that disasters are lived experiences deeply intertwined with industrial capitalism and the governance of life and non-life, as theorised by Elizabeth Povinelli. The chapter reveals how the concept of ‘non-life’ is actually a vital reality, challenging the traditional Earth-society divide and highlighting complex relationalities. By focusing on these situated and hybrid experiences of disasters, the chapter argues for alternatives to intellectual colonisation and technocratic disaster risk reduction (DRR) practices. This approach offers a pathway to more inclusive and contextually relevant understandings of disasters.