De la “extinción” a la autoafirmación - Georgetown University

conversaciones entre el 2007 y el 2009, este trabajo examina los procesos de
invisibilización-visibilización de los pueblos originarios en Santa Cruz rastreando la
agencia indígena a partir de un caso paradigmático: el pasaje de Camusu Aike desde
“reserva tehuelche” vigilada a “comunidad” autónoma. En este proceso de lucha por el
reconocimiento como pueblos preexistentes e interlocutores válidos converge el
activismo indígena, empresas petroleras, normativas jurídicas, gestión estatal y una
antropología comprometida.
FROM “EXTINCTION” TO SELF EMPOWERMENT:
PROCESSES OF VISIBILIZATION OF THE TEHUELCHE COMMUNITY CAMUSU
AIKE (PROVINCE OF SANTA CRUZ, ARGENTINA)
In the province of Santa Cruz the idea that “there are no more Indians” has been
generalized as a consequence of two presuppositions: first, the idea that the tehuelche
people (considered as “Argentinean Indians”) have been extinguished, and second, that
the mapuche people are illegitimate (recent migrants coming from northern provinces or
from Chile). State and scientific dispositifs built on civilizatory, racist and nationalist
prejudices converged in a discursive formation according to which the supposed
extinction was the result of a process of degenerative miscegenation (mestizaje). Such
dispositifs justified the dispossession of their territories, enterprises that were oriented to
“rescue” the “last pure Indians”, and the appropriation of their cultural practices and
iv