Latin American History Commons^™

Ecological Crisis And The Re-Enchantment Of Nature In Jaime Huenún’S Reducciones., Ida Day

Modern Languages Faculty Research

Chilean poet Jaime Huenún’s Reducciones (Reductions; 2012) explores the social and environmental consequences of European colonization since the second half of the nineteenth century, when southern Chile received thousands of German immigrants as part of a state-sponsored colonization plan. Confronted with large stretches of impenetrable native forests, the colonists began a deforestation process in order to prepare the land for agriculture and livestock farming, which left a profound impact on the society, economy, and geography of the region. In less than a century, the region spanning La Araucanía to Chiloé lost at least three million hectares of native forests. The …