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Masculinity in the mining industry of Tarapacá: an archaeology of the “saltpetre man” in the company town of Dolores during the 19th and 20th centuries

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No. 51 (2025): Primer Semestre
https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-1472.2025.79308
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Abstract

This article explores the construction of gender in the nitrate industry of Tarapacá (1830-1930). Considering the lack of archaeology on this topic, we approach the saltpetre worker from a posthumanist perspective. We propose that masculinity is a state of matter in constant becoming the result of dynamic material relations in different cultural and social contexts. Our study focused on the clothing documented at the Dolores office, the former industrial hub of northern Chile. The cycles of repair (patches on clothes and reused soles) reveal ritualized practices that naturalized physical resistance as a collective condition of the nitrate community, which was reduced by phallocentric discourses to the spectral figure of the “saltpetre man” as the universal subject of the period. This research seeks to contribute to the archaeological study of gender in Latin American industrial contexts and to expand the understanding of masculinity in past labour environments.

Keywords:

clothing , gender , posthumanism , mining
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How to Cite
Castro, F. (2025). Masculinity in the mining industry of Tarapacá: an archaeology of the “saltpetre man” in the company town of Dolores during the 19th and 20th centuries . Revista Chilena De Antropología, (51), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-1472.2025.79308
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Revista Chilena de Antropología
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales
Universidad de Chile
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