Terremotos recordados, temblores olvidados. Interpretaciones sobre los orígenes de la memoria telúrica en Chile

Abstract

This article will address some of the factors and situations that determined, to some extent, how telluric events are understood, remembered, and represented by Chilean society from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Generally, historical studies have greatly minimized the importance of these events, favoring instead aspects related to religious beliefs that were of great significance at the time, however, in this paper other influencing factors beyond religious arguments are examined, most notably, perceptions and images held of the Chilean territory and the various economic and political interests of authorities at the time. Moreover, this study investigates the importance of including the historical perspective, always associated with other disciplines, in the analysis of disasters