Dhr. G.E. (Gustavo) Blanco Wells: “The Social Life of Regions. Salmon farming and the regionalization of development in Chilean Patagonia”

This book explores a sociological approach towards understanding the contemporary process by which certain territorial relations are grouped under the notion of region. The research adopts an ethnographic perspective to reconstruct the social life of regions by focusing not only on the processes and activities that have transformed territorial units into objects of intervention, but also on the practices and sites that have turned regions into meaningful fields of action through which people carry out their life projects. This argument is sustained through research findings that recorded the spread of salmon farming in the Patagonian Region of Aysén in southern Chile. This research aims to broaden the perspective of regional development towards locally constructed forms of change that can contribute to make visible and build up new livelihood opportunities and to re-think a more inclusive perspective that values the experience of regional dwellers.

Gustavo Blanco Wells is lecturer at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Universidad Austral of Chile.