Astronomy as Scientific Extractivism: The Conflict Over the Installation of the European Very Large Telescope in Chile in the 1990s

Abstract

This article examines the 1990s conflict over the construction of the European Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal in Chile’s Atacama Desert, through an analysis of media coverage from Chile’s main daily newspaper, as well as other secondary sources. Occurring at an extraordinary moment in Chilean history—the return to liberal democracy after the dictator Augusto Pinochet lost his bid to remain in power—the Paranal conflict was at once a moment of reckoning for the institutions of the new regime, and a challenge to the practice of scientific extractivism, defined here as data collection in an exceptional site that eventually benefits the guest scientists more than the host country. Although it is often reduced to a dispute over land ownership, the conflict was also about labour rights, national sovereignty, and the equitable distribution of economic and scientific benefits, such as guaranteed telescope time for Chilean astronomers. The European Southern Observatory avoided being evicted from the country only through a thorough renegotiation of every aspect of the agreement binding it to Chile.