Identidades estructurales y migración hacia Antofagasta 2020, el caso argentino

Abstract

Since colonial times there has been a great closeness between Chile and Argentina, despite the barrier of the Andes Mountains, which has historically resulted in cross migrations. For its part, at this time (early 2021), in Argentina two crises are converging, the first is a cumulative economic and political crisis with decades of gradual pressure on the socio- cultural structures that have shaped its republican life since the irruption of Peronism on October 17, 1945 to the present. Added to this is the crisis due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic and its very long associated quarantine. Both crises are causing substantial damage to the Argentine productive fabric, with a growing bankruptcy of SMEs and other structural damage in the country. In this sense, we are facing a real possibility of a sudden rise in immigration from Argentina to Chile, contrary to what has been common, in the opposite direction. This eventual Argentine migration to Chile, particularly in the case of Antofagasta, has to be addressed considering the specific mining extractive characteristics of this región in northern Chile.