Narratives about indigenous people: Invisibilization and anachronism

BARREIRO, ALICIA; WAINRYB, CECILIA; CARRETERO, MARIO

París

Simposio; 4th Conference of the International Research Association for History and Social Sciences Education.; 2018

International Research Association for History and Social Sciences Education (IRAHSSE)

The ?Conquest of the Desert? a military campaign carried out by the Argentine State at the end of the 19th century, involved the genocide and enslavement of most local indigenous communities. To date, in a small city in the southern region of the province of Buenos Aires, the descendants of the founding militaries and of European immigrants who arrived at the beginning of 20th century to settle the ?conquered? lands live alongside descendants of the indigenous Mapuche community who inhabited that territory before the conquest. In the proposed presentation we present and discuss findings about the narrative meanings concerning this historical process as conveyed by the exhibits of a local historical museum. The museum?s exhibits were analyzed for how they represent time and for which aspects of history they make visible and which they occlude, as a way to elucidate how the past is evoked, how the possibilities for a future are conceived, and how identities are negotiated and constructed. Analyses show that the narratives about the local past as conveyed in the museum?s explicit and implicit discourse are presented as unidimensional and ahistorical, and objects are exhibited as though they could narrate history in and of themselves. The temporal sequence of the museum?s various rooms conveys a narrative that implicitly suggests that indigenous people disappeared because of the Spaniards? colonization, thus freeing the Argentine government and historical accounts from the responsibility for the indigenous genocide.