Memoria y Territorio. Transformaciones socioterritoriales en Boquete Nahuelpan luego del desalojo de 1937

Abstract

All Tehuelche-Mapuche families who had occupied the lands of Boquete Nahuelpan, in the northwest of the province of Chubut-Patagonia Argentina, were violently expelled in 1937. This forced expelled --considered one of the largest and most violent of the 20th century in the región-- was driven and promoted by local elites in collusion with the government in power. The dispossession of their lands was not only enough, but they had to wipe out all traces of native people presence. They burned their houses, dismantled their families, and razed arms and plantations. The displaced mapuche-tehuelche families were left adrift for many years. This thesis reconstructs the cartographies on the different journeys they had to undertake searching for a place to re-assemble as a lofche (community) after so much suffering. Expelled families started populating the periphery of the city of Esquel and different places in the area, completely modifying the settlement of the northwestern region of Chubut. This thesis is part of the anthropological sciences, particularly in the field of studies on the social memory of native people. This work is the result of a research on the spatial, social and affective legacy that Boquete Nahuelpan territory has for new generations. A territory that throughout history was inhabited, destroyed and rebuilt. The thesis, then, has a double purpose: on the one hand, analyze the socio-territorial transformations which modified the social space and the different ways of relating to it after 1937 eviction and, on the other hand, to represent them cartographically through maps and diagrams that allow a spatial visualization of the memories and meanings that indian people give to that land. There are several historical and anthropological investigations that have previously studied the settlement of the northwestern region of Chubut. In this framework, the aim is to provide an analysis focused on the creation of maps that allow not only to locate ourselves in a specific space, but also understand how expelled families thought, occupied and related to that land throughout history. To that purpose four historical moments are considered: 1) The arrival of the different native groups to the Boquete Nahuelpan area in the mid-19th century; 2) the process of formation and state concession of land in 1908 (Díaz, 2003 and Sourroullie, 2017); 3) the dismantling of the reserve in 1937 through a violent expelled (Díaz, 2003; Delrio, 2005 and Lenton, 2014); and finally, the displacement and relocation of native families. This thesis presents and analyzes these socio-territorial transformations from a qualitative and relational approach. Such approach is nourished by a long-term perspective in order to explain the process of shaping the social space, as well as from an ethnographic approach of how indian people represent it. The field work included tours of the ancestral territory and some of the sites where families were located after the violent event, as well as interviews with members of different families that currently live in Boquete Nahuelpan. The main techniques used in data collection and production were in-depth interviews, participanting observation, and informal conversations; the identification and organization of state archives and family documents, as well as the analysis and production of cartographic information. This thesis is focused on the memory processes of members of several families that were expelled in 1937. In particular, it deepens into a memory-forgetting processes and, closely related the affective-territorialization. It focuses on the spatial and collective character of the memory of families expelled. Based on the analysis of various maps (representations of spatiality from different perspectives) it is asked how they contribute (or not) to make visible the struggles to define and inhabit the territories. Within this more general purpose, this research motivates to show the silenced or invisible cartographies. The maps presented here invite us to rethink not only the settlement of Boquete Nahuelpan - and the entire region in which it is inserted - but also to put in tension cartographic limits that fix arbitrarily the trial of the past and immobilize the ongoing processes.