Conflicting Narratives about Argentinean "Conquest of the Desert". Representations, cognitive Polyphasia, and Nothingness

BARREIRO, ALICIA; CASTORINA, JOSÉ ANTONIO; VAN ALPHEN, FLOOR

Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education

Palgrave

Año: 2017; p. 373 - 389

This chapter looks into how people account for an Argentine historical process called the ?Conquest of the Desert‟ (i.e. a military campaign that was undertaken by the Argentine government from 1874 to 1885). Since 1880 this campaign has been very important in the official master narrative in Argentina. However, recent insights from different disciplinary perspectives have given rise to important debates about this master narrative. Although the traditional view is still present in different symbolic resources such as textbooks, museums or monuments, it conflicts with a revisionist narrative that emphasizes the slaughter of indigenous people perpetrated by the Argentine State during this process. The contribution of SR theory to understand how individuals acquire the group?s past, constituting their national identity, will be discussed. Specifically, we will consider the role of SR in understanding how the power struggle among social groups shapes collective memory. Also, their role in the way individuals think about history, determining what can be collectively signified and what can be excluded from the real sphere, will be scrutinized. Finally, we will examine what this implies for intervening in students‟ history learning and the possibilities to transform common sense knowledge into the disciplinary knowledge of history.