INDIGENOUS MOVEMENTS, LAND STRUGGLES, AND CHRONIC

VOM HAU, MATTHIAS; WILDE, GUILLERMO

Manchester, Inglaterra

Workshop; The government of chronic poverty: From the politics of exclusion to citizenship?; 2008

Universidad de Manchester

This article explores indigenous mobilization in Argentina since the 1994 constitutional reform and its broader political and socioeconomic ramifications through a comparative analysis of land struggles among the Mbya Guaraní in Misiones and the Diaguita Calchaquí in Tucumán.  These mobilizations illustrate that the constitutional recognition of indigenous lands only became implemented once local communities pursed formal titling.  Moreover, ethnic mobilization around land introduces a new language of ‘rights’.  Even communities without formal property titles use rights-based discursive strategies to protect their access to lands.  At the same time, the material conditions in Diaguita and Mbya communities have not improved in a national context marked by rising inequality and poverty.  Our analysis is thus consistent with arguments suggesting that the primary effects of indigenous social movements are not to change material conditions, but to politicize dominant discourses and policy debates about how poverty and wellbeing are understood in society.