Lucas da Costa Maciel and Patricia Ayala write:
The paper examines the repatriation and reburial of ancestral remains in the Atacama Desert, focusing on the 2012 conflict involving the Atacameño community of Taira, the Chilean state, an archaeological consultancy firm, and a mining company.
The discovery and removal of human remains by archaeologists contracted for a pipeline impact study ignited tensions over Indigenous authority, state heritage laws and guidelines, and scientific interests.
The paper explores how the Chilean state prioritised institutional, archaeological, and heritage frameworks that undermine Indigenous realities, reducing repatriation to a bureaucratic process imposing non-Indigenous criteria over Indigenous worlds.
It argues that repatriation processes should be seen as ontological conflicts and calls for Indigenous authority over them, offering the best possible conditions for Indigenous worlds to recover, even if only partially, from the impact of the removals.
