Silencios y luchas territoriales Mapuche como lugares de significación política y cultural

Abstract

This article reflects on ethnographies of silences, reflecting a dialogic movement between theoretical and methodological frames and an ethnographical practice that considers its dimension of cultural and political production. The focus is on Mapuche memories, and official uses of the past that created different historical interpretations about the “Chapelco conflict” in San Martín de los Andes, Neuquén (Argentina) and silences.

The objective is to understand why those Mapuche memories about their past fights for their lands cannot find a place in recent history. This work also approaches the inverse movement, the impossibility to find words to speak about injustices without betraying the Mapuche experiences in the world and their relations with the environment that tourism calls nature.