Attending Dr Elisa Loncon Antileo’s Lecture
I [Fernando Figueroa Pereira] was lucky enough to attend the lecture by Dr Elisa Loncon Antileo (University of Santiago, Chile) on Plurinationality in Chile in the New Constitution: Current Difficulties & Challenges for Indigenous Peoples.
Dr Loncon was elected as one of the representatives of the Mapuche people to the Chilean Constitutional Convention and was then named the Convention’s first president (July 2021 – January 2022). The Convention was tasked with rewriting the dictatorship-era constitution. This process began after mass protests across Chile in 2019 and a national vote in favour of replacing the old Constitution in 2020. Chilean voters subsequently rejected the proposed revisions to the Constitution with a majority of 62% in September 2022.
An Expert Commission then assisted in the drafting of another Constitution by a second Constituent Assembly in the first half of 2023. The draft was then discussed by a Constituent Council. 56% of Chilean voters then rejected the second constitutional proposal in December 2023.
In this Lecture, Dr Loncon discuss her experiences in these constitutional processes and social and political movements as an Indigenous woman, academic and indigenous rights activist.
Elisa Loncon Antileo was born in the Mapuche community of Lefweluan, Wallmapu, Southern Chile. She is a linguist and an Indigenous rights and languages activist. She holds a PhD in humanities from the University of Leiden and a second PhD in literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
She is a Professor in Intercultural Education, Department of Education, Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), where she undertakes research on Indigenous methodologies and philosophies and the teaching of Mapuzugun language.
In 2021, Elisa Loncon was elected as one of the representatives of the Mapuche people for the Chilean Constitutional Convention, of which she served as elected President during the first period of the Constitutional Convention. In 2021, she was:
Awarded the René Cassin Human Rights Award from the Basque Government in recognition of her substantial contributions to the defence of human rights.
Named in Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and one of The Financial Times’ 25 most influential women in the world.
Her most recent book is Azmapu Aportes de la filosofia Mapuche para el cuidado del lof y la madre tierra, Editorial Planeta, 2023 (Azmapu: contributions of Mapuche philosophy to the care of community and mother earth)
