Next Monday, May 13, Dr. in Anthropology, Julieta Magallanes, from the Patagonian Institute of Social and Human Sciences “Dra. María Florencia del Castillo Bernal” (IPCSH-CONICET) of the CCT CONICET-CENPAT, will present at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair, her recent publication “Mapuches in Mendoza?” Territorial conflicts and denialism in a Creole province.
At the beginning of 2023, Mendoza public opinion was absorbed by the question that gives the book its title: Are there Mapuches in Mendoza? The compulsive and hasty treatment of the issue in public spheres at all levels led to an alarming institutional situation: on March 29, 2023, the Chamber of Deputies of Mendoza issued a statement stating that “the Mapuches should not be considered Argentine indigenous peoples.” .
Julieta Magallanes has a degree and doctorate in Anthropology, from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires, and has specialized in interethnic relations between indigenous peoples and States since the Republican period. Recently, she has entered the CONICET Researcher/Scientist Career at the IPCSH and works as an adjunct professor at the National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco.
“The province, well-known for being “the land of sun and wine,” for coveted international tourism and for its European pioneering, was able to successfully install an image of Creole purity and indigenous extinction by perpetuating a civilizational narrative against the Indian and the “desert” since the 19th century. However, the ethnographic work included in the book is concerned with demonstrating how current Mapuche and Mapuche-Pehuenche identifications not only have deep historical roots, but are an unavoidable part of the identities and popular demands of southern Mendoza, persisting as “face “hidden”, increasingly emerging, of a province that insists on sparing them their present and future”, highlighted in the communication made by the organizers.
She will be accompanied by the Ph.D. Mariela Rodríguez and Dr. Virginia Manzano, both from the Institute of Anthropological Sciences (CONICET-UBA / FFyL / ICA), and Dr. Julio Vezub, director of IPCSH-CONICET and in turn director of the Editorial’s Tanteando al Elefante Collection SB, of which the book in question is a part.
