The desert, the border, and the city: Staging a spectacle on the Chile-Peru border
Freeman, C
Date: 20 March 2021
Article
Journal
Political Geography
Publisher
Elsevier
Publisher DOI
Abstract
The 1970s saw Chile and Peru, both headed by military dictators, come to the brink of war. In order to
avoid such a war, the Chilean military in the far north engaged in techniques of ‘spectacle’ for two
reasons: firstly, to convince citizens on both sides of the border that Chile had a strong miltary and
would succeed in the event ...
The 1970s saw Chile and Peru, both headed by military dictators, come to the brink of war. In order to
avoid such a war, the Chilean military in the far north engaged in techniques of ‘spectacle’ for two
reasons: firstly, to convince citizens on both sides of the border that Chile had a strong miltary and
would succeed in the event of a war with Peru, and secondly, to create the impression of ‘fraternity’
with Peru. To perform these spectacles, the Chilean military employed the geography of northern Chile
in three spaces: the desert, the border, and the city. These spaces became stages where acts of military
deception could be implemented with the Chileans using fake tanks, military ceremonies, and bogus
parades to appear militarily strong. This extends current scholarship by arguing that multiple
environments can be harnessed for their specific geographical qualities in order to stage a unified
geopolitical spectacle. Previous geographical scholarship has focused on individual environments as
military spaces and scholarship on spectacle has treated environments as a backdrop and not a central
part of how the spectacle is enacted. Here I show that it was the precise natures of the border, the desert,
and the city that were exploited for a multi-scaled, heterogeneous, and fractured form of spectacle.
Through the orchestrated control of these three spaces that define the border region, a clear narrative of
military strength matched with a desire for peaceful co-operation with Peru was created.
Geography - old structure
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