“Las formas de la memoria”. Recuerdos construidos en contextos de expropiación y recuperación territorial en Patagonia

Abstract

The following work aims at reflecting on the role of memory in situations of territorial conflict (current or past) in Patagonia, Argentina. For this purpose, we will focus on two ethnographic cases, which open the possibility of thinking a double movement of memory in relation to the defense of the territory.

In the first of these movements, we will analyse the memories that emerge in the context of a recent territorial recovery process of Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu (Río Negro). The memory works, carried out by members of this community, allow the configuration of new ways of "being together" as an argument for the defense of a territory. On the other hand, in the second of these movements, the focus will be placed on the stories of members of the Mapuche-Tehuelche families linked to the 1937 eviction of Boquete Nahuelpan (Chubut), where, in a fragmented and spatially separated way, memories emerge highlighting those moments in which they have ceased to be together as a consequence of a specific policy of eviction and territorial expropriation in the past.