Construction of modernity in the "frontiers of civilization": Historical and anthropological approach to socioeconomic backwardness from the development in Lebu coal industry, (1852-1999)

Abstract

From an anthropological and historical-critical perspective, we argue that the charcoal industry in the second half of the XIX century installed in Lebu both modernity and chronic poverty. Like two faces of the same coin, both phenomena are associated with reproducing an extractive logic, a determinant in this territory. For the methodology approach, the newspapers La Verdad, Proa al Futuro, El Araucano and El Amigo del Minero are reviewed, as well as the memoirs from the Lebulense coal companies. The analysis of these sources allows us to state that socioeconomic backwardness has historical and geopolitical roots in the territory due to the poverty accompanying extractives practices based on economic and social dependence on coal mining.