Geopolitics and Nationality in Chilean Foreign Policy Relating to Border Regions

This article examines Chilean foreign policy relating to its northern border from critical geopolitical approaches and decolonial international studies, delving into the scope of the so-called Parinacota Plan. This initiative, implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2018, sought to revitalize a peripheral territory—the community of Putre, on the border Chile shares with Peru and Bolivia— in a complex political context which included the case heard by the International Court of Justice in The Hague. We conclude that although the authorities of the Chilean state tried to innovatively manage the process, they adhered to neocolonial guidelines that did not allow them to clearly address local demands of the Indigenous Aymara communities, whose worldview makes any intervention in their territory unique.