Indigenous Archives in White Argentina

ESCOLAR, DIEGO

Florianópolis

Congreso; 18 International Union of Anthropological and Etnological Sciences, World Congress.; 2018

18 International Union of Anthropological and Etnological Sciences

EL LIBRO SE ENCUENTRA EN PRENSAThe narrative of a "white" Argentina entailed an ethnogeographic imaginary by which the territories of the former Spanish colonies were inhabited since the nineteenth century by gauchos or eventually peasants. The population classified as indigenous, in this view, was projected outside the central areas controlled by the nation-state, beyond the frontiers of the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Chaco. Based on documents preserved by inhabitants of the travesía, or the desert, in the central Cuyo region, this analysis stresses the continuity of indigenous claims and the political strategies of the communities of the countryside during the eighteenth, nineteenth and even twentieeth century. This analysis shows the primary importance of indigenous claims in an area of traditional rebellion and civil conflict, and the active participation of its inhabitants in the construction of the state.