Pérdidas y dispersiones en las políticas de archivo de la Dirección de Tierras Fiscales de Río Negro

Abstract

Based on ethnographic records of repeated visits to the files archive of the Río Negro province (Argentina) Fiscal Lands Office, in this article I analyze the assumptions about identity, territory, and losses, expressed in the daily functioning of said institution, as well as the disputes that the Mapuche people establish around them. The analysis of daily comments, uses of the category “poblador disperso” and the archiving policies lead me to state that the fiscal land regime operates as a dispositif that regulates their inhabitants, naturalizes the perpetuity of the fiscal character of the land, denies the actions of the State in the production of forced displacements and constructs the loss ⸺of identity, of documents, of territory⸺ as a natural and irreversible path. In opposition to the official policies that make the privatization of the territory possible, many Mapuche people retrace the losses through practices aimed at recovering memories, documents, territories and belongings, which mobilized the searches that I analyze here.