Self-Managed Data that Supports Advocacy: the Experience of the Txawun of Temuco

Written on 22 December 2025. Posted in News

BY DANKO MARINAMAN AND KARINA VARGAS FOR INDIGENOUS DEBATES

The Indigenous Navigator initiative has strengthened the rights of the Mapuche people of Temuco. Through data collection and community dialogues, 25 communities have been able to draw attention to the impacts of urban expansion on their ancestral territories. This tool has made it possible to promote political advocacy actions, revive cultural practices and move towards food sovereignty. The process has been led by the communities themselves, reaffirming their self-determination and revitalizing their identity. This experience demonstrates how data can become a powerful tool for resilience and transformation.

On 20 June every year, the Wiñoy Txipantu or Mapuche New Year is celebrated in Chile: this coincides with the winter solstice and marks the gradual return of the sun from the farthest point north to the south. On this occasion, we held a Txawün (large gathering) in the Pedro Curiqueo community of the Paillaomapu lof, Temuco commune, bringing together more than 500 people from the 24 communities that form part of the Txawün of Mapuche Communities of Temuko. There, we prayed for our health, for the well-being of our families and communities, that our ancestors would continue to guide us and that we would gain much newen (strength) to tackle the challenges facing us as an organization.

After the ceremony led by the machi (spiritual authority) came the nutxam (conversation) in a large circle. This space brought to mind how the Txawün emerged in 2018, in the context of an Indigenous consultation that sought to amend Articles 12 and 13 of Indigenous Law No. 19,253. These two articles address the issue of Indigenous lands and territories and establish the conditions for accessing them. We also recalled how the communities had organized and coordinated to defend their territorial rights in the face of attempted dispossession.

Since then, the road has been a long and complex one. In 2015, the urban boundary defined in the Temuco Communal Regulatory Plan added a new threat to the communities, that of urban expansion without community consultation. To date, this redefinition has resulted in the loss of more than 2,000 hectares of Mapuche territory that had previously been recognized through Merced Titles (a concept that emerged in the late 19^th century as a form of State recognition of Mapuche land after the “pacification” of Araucanía). Today, the process of urban expansion continues apace, together with the debate over how much more cities can grow, and how our ancestral territory and its common assets can be protected.

Nutxam, Txawum and Community Surveys

It was against this backdrop that the Indigenous Navigator initiative, a data platform developed by and for the world’s Indigenous Peoples, was implemented for the first time in Chile in 2024 with the Mapuche people. The project was implemented in the Araucanía Region, with the 25 communities that form part of the Txawun of Temuco Commune. This initiative was conducted with the support of the Observatorio Ciudadano, a Chilean civil society organization that promotes, documents and defends human rights.

The community surveys were thus implemented from the start of 2024, through nutxam and txawum (Mapuche forms of dialogue that gather contributions from all participants), during extensive days of reflection and collective debate on the situation of their rights and their implementation by the State. Community representatives participated in these meetings: women and men of different ages, community authorities, and ancestral authorities such as the lonko (Mapuche authority) and the machi (spiritual authority). The children also accompanied the entire process and a professional from the communities themselves facilitated the conversation and application of the instrument, as well as the systematization of the experience.

The results of the survey were clear in relation to the effects the communities are now suffering as a result of urban sprawl. Not only is the territory being lost but also the knowledge associated with its management and its spaces of cultural and spiritual significance, all of which goes hand in hand with a decline in the use of Mapuzugun (the Mapuche language). The process of urban expansion has had an extensive impact on the good living and well-being of the communities, even including repression of those leaders who question the neoliberal economic model, a model that fails to take Mapuche ontologies of self-determined development into account.

The need to strengthen Mapuche food sovereignty and recover native seeds for good living and the protection of biocultural heritage was also raised. The communities reported a decline in the consumption of traditional Mapuche foods, particularly due to the loss of land and territory on which to grow them. They also felt the loss of native seeds was an issue due to the introduction of foreign or transgenic seeds and the use of pesticides. In the long run, these practices result in a loss of Mapuche knowledge associated with the care and protection of native seeds and diseases related to malnutrition, mainly, in older adults.

The Survey as a Tool for Making Land Loss more Visible

Based on the results of the community survey, the Txawün communities of Temuco have reflected on the use of different strategies, both internal and external, by which to make progress towards guaranteeing their rights. The main one of these has been advocacy with the local, regional and national authorities. The Txawün communities decided to take the data collected in the survey to the Land Roundtable that they hold with the National Indigenous Development Corporation (CONADI). In this institutional space, the communities seek solutions to and compensation for land lost due to private, corporate, and State interference in their recognized Merced titled land.

This advocacy work could be seen during the Wiñoy Txipantu event, where CONADI awarded a Resolution of Applicability to the Pedro Curiqueo community: the ngen ruka (owner) community who were claiming the land where the activity was taking place. This document enshrines the State’s official recognition of the loss of land. It determines whether a piece of land can be acquired by an Indigenous community and is a crucial step in initiating the process of land purchase by Indigenous communities. This process was supported by Senator Francisco Huenchumilla, who also participated in the activity.

Of the approximately 30 communities that today make up the Txawün, at least half already enjoy recognition of their Resolution of Applicability granted by CONADI. Many others, however, still do not have this, despite having between 30 and 99 percent of their land loss recognized by the State. This is extremely important because young people do not have land on which to build their homes or work, and they have to rent in the city, a situation that is complicated by the high cost of living in Chile.

It is precisely this context and reality that is reflected in the Indigenous Navigator community survey that was conducted with the Txawün. The survey, by providing much more detail and hard data, has served as an important input for the leaders so that they have better tools with which to defend their territories.

A Mapuche Cultural Encounter

Based on the results of the community survey, representatives of 25 communities of the Txawün of Mapuche Communities of Temuko are implementing the community project “Towards food sovereignty for Mapuche communities in Temuco through the safeguarding of territory, biodiversity and the revival of traditional knowledge”. This workshop has been designed and implemented in a participatory manner through nütram (Mapuche conversation that opens a participatory dialogue) and focuses on reviving traditional knowledge and practices related to food production, seeds and cultivation methods.

The meetings and exchanges likewise ensure the well-being of families, strengthening intergenerational ties between young people, adults and children. The project has generated a great deal of enthusiasm among the communities and is being developed through practical modules imparted by Mapuche individuals; meetings with traditional, local and regional authorities; and documentation of the experience through a documentary and a trafkintu (exchange of products, knowledge and seeds between communities, based on reciprocity and strengthening of social and cultural ties).

The workshops on the care and protection of seeds, medicinal plants, Mapuche gastronomy and the production of natural fertilizers and compost are over-subscribed. Women and men of all ages participate, many young people share with the papay y chachay (older adults), children listen to the stories and eat healthy and nutritious food. Memory lives and flourishes during the meetings: participants recall the teachings of their grandmothers and grandfathers; describe the vegetable gardens they tended in their childhood; and narrate the meals they shared at celebrations.

Through this encounter, the demand for territory thus takes on greater nuance and a new urgency: to keep Mapuche identity and culture alive.

Danko Mariman is an anthropologist and the coordinator of the Txawün of Mapuche Communities of Temuko.

Karina Vargas is a lawyer and coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Programme of the Observatorio Ciudadano.

Cover photo: The Wiñoy Txipantu. Photo: Liukura Mariman

Tags: Indigenous Debates