"¿Quién fue el verdadero salvaje en todo esto?": Las dimensiones morales en torno a la restitución de restos humanos indígenas

Abstract

At the end of the military campaigns in Patagonia, the Cacique Inacayal and his family were taken prisoners and confined in the Museum of Natural Science, in La Plata, where they were taken as "objects of scientific study" both in life and after their deaths. This article analyzes the "moral economies" (Fassin 2009) involved in the claims carried out by the Mapuche/Tehuelche communities for the human remains repatriation of Inacayal and his family, as well as the discourses and methods used both by political leaders and the museum's authorities. On the other hand, it aims to show how, in the context of the second human remains repatriation and through the indigenous mobilizations in the Chubut province, the relations of inequality and the existence of different frameworks of interpretation regarding conceptions of "person" and "human remains" were visualized.