A Migrant Community Imagined from a Mapuche Subjectivity of the XXI Century. Chilco by Daniela Catrileo

Abstract

The article aims to examine the way in which a pluricultural migrant community is generated in Daniela
Catrileo's novel Chilco (2023). It is proposed that the novel describes a migrant alliance between female
characters that come from different origins (Mapuche, Peruvian and Haitian) that opposes patriarchal and
postcolonial violence. With this aim, the analysis takes three paths: first, it studies the way in which the novel
represents the dangers of patriarchal and nationalism over the migrant characters and how they allied as a
form of response. Second, it analyzes the perpetuation of the postcolonial discourse through the organization
of spaces, characters and archives. And, in third place, our study demonstrates that the novel emphasizes the
appreciation of diversity among the characters, through an experiential practice where smells, flavors and
different ways of speaking create a sense of communion based on affection. Given these aspects, the plant that inhabits very humid lands, the chilco, functions as a metaphor for a new way of understanding migration, as permeability between cultures, and of understanding the structure of the novel, which is soaked/integrates the archives about the territory.