The Impact of Mapuche Ethnicity on the Perceived Seriousness of Crime in Chile: A Case Study of Indigenous Marginalization

In Chile, the Mapuche people are often the target of marginalization and stereotyping by the mass media and institutions. In different social and cultural contexts, there is a tendency to associate Mapuche ethnicity with a greater propensity to commit crimes. The Mapuche case can be seen as part of a global phenomenon of marginalization and criminalization of Indigenous identities. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of ethnic identification on the perceptions of crime and the alleged perpetrator. The study used a mixed method and a sample of 298 participants, 35.5% of whom identified as Mapuche. Participants described the protagonists of fake news stories about the crimes of theft and fraud differently. These differences are attributed to the ethnicity of the participant and the protagonist of the news story, Mapuche or non-Mapuche, although these differences do not imply a description of the Mapuche protagonist as more dangerous. Furthermore, non-Mapuche participants perceived the crime of robbery as more serious when the protagonist of the news story was a non-Mapuche. On the other hand, non-Mapuche participants perceived the crimes of terrorism and vandalism, which are often associated with Mapuche ethnicity in the Chilean media, as more serious than Mapuche participants. It is concluded that the results support the existence of a process of criminal subjection of the Mapuche, but that this influence may be limited to criminal behavior related to mediatized social stereotypes of the Mapuche.