Emotions, Rationality and Indigenous Knowledge in the Mechanisms of Participative Democracy: The Case of Indigenous Consultation in Chile

Abstract

This article seeks to describe and analyze the implementation of indigenous peoples' right to prior, free and informed consultation (ilo 169 Convention) through a participatory process developed by the Chilean state: The 'consultation of the consultation'. The procedure called Table of Consent was created in 2013, during the first government of Sebastian Piñera, with the purpose of co-elaborating with indigenous peoples the regulation of the application of said Convention. From a qualitative and ethnographic approach, which favors observation and interviews with civil servants and indigenous people who participated in this procedure, we conclude that the consultation mechanism uses different types of arguments, and emotions have a fundamental role since they are mobilized, proscribed or prescribed according to political aims.