The Desert Within. Indigenous genocide as a structuring event in Argentina.

DELRIO, WALTER; PÉREZ, PILAR

Los Angeles, California

Conferencia; INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, VIOLENCE AND ITS LASTING IMPACT ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES; 2022

University of Southern California

This presentation deals with state policies, governmental mechanisms, and various social agencies involved within the process of state consolidation and the subjugation and incorporation of indigenous people in northern Patagonia. The period focuses on the military occupation known as the “Conquest of the Desert” –1878 to 1885- as well asits short and long-term effects once the campaigns ended. The aim of this work is to balance the conceptual scope and limits of analyzing this complex process in terms of war, assimilation, or genocide. At the same time, it seeks to contribute to historical knowledge about the social structure of the National Territories, Patagonia and Chaco, which were incorporated with subaltern status within the national territory from 1884 to the 1950s. Thus, a second part of the chapter will attempt to periodizeindigenousgenocide bearing in mind the different steps that led to genocide as well as the outcome of this event. Finally, we will acknowledge theparticularities of the Argentinean experience in the construction of subalternity within the state-nation-territory matrix.This presentation is the result of our participation within different collective research projects that have studied indigenous peoples’ history in Patagonia,from their subjugation to the present.We have especially analyzed indigenous agency and political organization, as well as the subjugation, exploitation and discrimination that indigenous peopleshave beensufferingwithin Argentina’s society. Our work also draws from debates within the “Red de investigadorxsenGenocidio y PolíticaIndígenaen Argentina” (RIGPI) .RIGPI’s first aim has been to study the historical grounds of natives’ subjugation to the national states in order tomake visible contemporary demands and conflicts of indigenous peoples.Our firsttaskwas to understand what had happened to the Mapuche and Tehuelchepeoples during the Conquest of the Desert. As simple as it may sound, the question had not been academically dealt with for over a century, even though the military side of the Conquest constituted the last event registered regarding indigenous peoples by national historiography during most of the twentieth century. Bearing this in mind, we have sought to re-examine the process known as the Conquest of the Desert.