Power struggles in the remembering of a historical intergroup conflict: hegemonic and counter-narratives about the Argentinean ?Conquest of the Desert?

CARRETERO, MARIO; BARREIRO, ALICIA; WAINRYB, CECILIA

Amsterdam

Simposio; 48th Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society; 2018

Jean Piaget Society

In this presentation we examine narratives about an historical process, collectively constructed, transacted, and transmitted in an effort to remember and make sense of past events involving conflicts between groups, and focused on the constitutive relations between hegemonic and counter-narratives struggles for identity development. The ?Conquest of the Desert?, a military campaign carried out by the Argentine State at the end of the 19th century, involved the massacre and enslavement of indigenous communities. The specific narratives we discuss in this presentation were gathered via an ethnographic study carried out in a small Argentine city where descendants of the military men live alongside descendants of the indigenous people who used to occupy the land prior to the military campaign. The narratives were gathered via observations of different symbolical resources (e.g. monuments, names of streets, etc.), interviews and informal meetings with the inhabitants of that city. They were analyzed for how they represent indigenous identity and the relation between past, present and future. Our analyses show that the hegemonic narrative tends to negate the conflict between the two groups by rendering the indigenous group invisible and representing their identity in an anachronistic fashion. The counter-narrative evidences a tension between indigenous people?s need to assert their identification with their ancestors and secure recognition from the dominant group, while also allowing for change and transformation in their midst.