Festivals of the Handmade Salt Landscape in Chile: identification, evolution, festive dynamics and territorial scopes

Abstract

The artisan salt landscape forms a complex network of components scattered throughout the territory, where festivals are one of the intangible layers that underlie this landscape. Indeed, the festival is part of a spatial-temporal dynamic that contributes to the construction of social, cultural and territorial processes. In this way, the interest of this research lies in identifying the festivals of the salt mines in the Central Zone of Chile in order to study them from a socio-territorial perspective. To this end, the methodology is based on a qualitative and descriptive study, through field work, interviews and direct observation in the Chilean salt mines. The results have revealed that the salt festivals are dynamic elements, inserted in territorial structures, configuring themselves as dynamic components in the salt landscape, which is why it is fundamental to understand them as interconnected, evolutionary, and integrating festive events in a socio-territorial network of the landscape.