The Instrumentalization of Participatory Management in Protected Areas: The ethnicization of participation in the Kolla-Atacameña Region of the Central Andes of Argentina and Chile

This paper focuses on participation regarding protected area's management with respect to the supposed benefits to local communities in two regions: the Los Flamencos national reserve located in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, and the World Cultural Landscape of the Quebrada de Humahuaca in Argentina. The priority is to explain the links of legitimization created between participatory management and local people. How do conservation organisations define and instrumentalize local people in their participatory strategies? Conversely, what tools do local people use to legitimate themselves to gain power and credibility in participatory management? Both sides consider the current ethnicization of local indigenous people as a relevant process of empowerment causing success or failure of the participation process depending on local and national political contexts and strategies, as analysed in the two case studies.