Mapuche Media Practices: Rethinking Indigenous Resistance and Communication Beyond Western Frameworks

This research will examine the mediation practices within the Chilean Mapuche movement, advancing the fields of media and communications, social movement studies, and Latin American studies through the lens of Mapuche epistemology and knowledge. It will analyse how the mediation of the Mapuche movement functions in the Chilean context, where Mapuche lands continue to be appropriated for forestry, extractive activities, and agriculture, and where diverse organisations coexist - some adopting reformist approaches (e.g. lobbying state actors), while others engage in more confrontational actions (e.g. land takeovers). Methodologically, this research will adopt a qualitative ethnographic approach, with in-depth interviews with members of Mapuche organisations, participant observation, and multimodal media analysis. Most literature explores Indigenous peoples’ appropriation of media but overlooks the mediation of Indigenous peoples - that is, how meanings about Mapuche peoples and issues are produced, circulated, received and contested within unequal power relations. Theoretically, this research will draw from the Circuit of Protest and the mediation opportunity structure (Cammerts, 2018) - a Western conceptual framework that conceptualises protest mediation as a ‘circuit’, and examines the agency, rationales and strategies of social movement actors. It also considers the structural constraints and opportunities they must negotiate at each stage, from discourse production and media appropriation, to interactions with mainstream media and reception of their content by state and non-activist publics. By adapting the framework of the Circuit of Protest, integrating Indigenous Mapuche epistemologies, knowledge and culture to rethink resistance and mediation, this research aims to shift Indigenous knowledge from the margins to the centre of academic research, challenging the coloniality of knowledge, and demonstrating how it can reshape dominant Western frameworks.