“Discussing the Indigenous Genocide in Argentina: Past, Present and Consequences of Argentinean State Policies toward Native Peoples”.

DELRIO, WALTER; LENTON, DIANA; MUSANTE, MARCELO; NAGY, MARIANO; PAPAZIÁN, ALEXIS; PÉREZ, PILAR

Genocide Studies and Prevention

University of Toronto Press

Lugar: Toronto; Año: 2010 vol. 5 p. 138 - 159

1911-0359

For a long time the historiographical and anthropological narrative in Argentina contributed to state a double assumption that is nowadays strongly grounded in citizens’ common sense.  On the one hand, the extinction of Indigenous Peoples over a period of time vaguely dated from the Spaniards conquest to the military campaigns known as “Conquest of the Desert”. On the other hand, such extinction is simultaneously interpreted as a “natural” process in universal history. Argentine State policies were, then, naturalized. It is frequently assumed that this set of natural processes might have left only individual “descendants”, in place of political entities. Therefore, modern Argentinean society would be the outcome of a European “melting pot”, in which the indigenous component is absent. We postulate that physical elimination, concentration practices, deportation, enslavement, identity cleansing on children and cultural destruction constitute mechanisms of homogenization that add up to conceptualize politics towards indigenous peoples in Argentina as genocide. Ethnic politics produced after the military campaigns were based on the assumption of the close “extinction” of those peoples. Federal and provincial States constructed their policies considering indigenous peoples as “survivors”, “the final remains of an ending culture”, “the few left”, etc, omitting to name causes for that supposed extinction. The focus is placed on current cultural policies that announce intercultural, plurality and diversity goals while, at the same time, they aim to limit the margins of Indian political autonomy. We propose that this genocidal project is linked inextricably to the constitution and organization of Argentinean National State.