Wadalafken Mapu: Collaborative Ethnography and the Struggle for a Radical Future in Coastal Mapuche Lafkenche Communities

This paper explores how collaborative ethnography can be part of building resilient coastal communities. It does so by way of a methodological reflection on a collaborative research project that was carried out by the first author together with a Mapuche Lafkenche political organization that is active in the coastal region of southern Chile and is in the process of applying for an Indigenous marine area called ECMPO Wadalafken. The Wadalafken ECMPO Association has been working together with professionals and researchers from different areas to realize diverse actions related to the request for an Indigenous coastal and marine area. Collaboration with actors inside and outside the territory is part of the Association’s strategy to transform social, environmental, and political power relations, restoring Indigenous coastal relations and constructing resilient coastal Indigenous communities. The first author was part of this process as a collaborative ethnographer. In this paper, we first elaborate on how collaborative ethnography was employed in this research project as a way to support the political process of the Wadalafken ECMPO Association. After that, we go on to present the lessons learned from this research project: (1) trust and time are crucial elements of collaborative ethnographic research designs, (2) local political relations and organization shape the options for doing collaborative ethnography, and (3) collaborative ethnographic research can be transformative on different levels. We conclude that collaborative ethnography is best understood as a collaborative space that continuously is under construction and can be both transformative for participating (Indigenous) communities and academic researchers.