Mapuche women caring with the Cholchol river: Defending Itrofill Mongen as an environmental struggle

This article analyzes the socioenvironmental struggle waged to defend the Cholchol River in the Araucanía Region of Chile and more specifically the central role of women in this struggle. My analysis is structured around three main theoretical frameworks: the ethics of care, feminist political ecology, and the sociology of attachment. These perspectives allow us to read the ways in which extractive predation affects the river, subsistence activities, and networks of reciprocity. This struggle brings to light a specific way of doing politics based on care for living beings, relationships, and the material conditions of life’s reproduction.