Percepciones entramadas: Procesos de subjetivación indígena y policial en Río Negro

Abstract

After the military campaigns against the indigenous population in Patagonia (1878-1885), there was no single policy to define the future of the survivors of the genocidal process. Intervention in situations linked to the occupation of land or the fulfillment of citizen rights remained mainly in the hands of the police agency (territorial police, border police or gendarmerie or national gendarmerie). Nowadays, there is an alleged antagonism between native peoples and police forces as a result of a long history of situations of violence, as well as an assimilationist logic derived from the genocide. However, the police force has been a more complex field in which many Mapuche persons are part of the force. In this work, we are interested in delving into the police as a “way out” and in the perceptions of the present indigenous situation from within the institution and from the personal trajectories of police/Mapuche in Río Negro.