Rescuing roots: indigenous people, researchers and cultural policies in the construction of provincial identities (La Pampa, Argentina, 1960-1993)

https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n28.13

Claudia Salomón Tarquini
Orcid ID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5578-2826
Universidad Nacional de La Pampa3, Conicet, Argentina
claudia.salomon.tarquini@gmail.com

Anabela E. Abbona
Orcid ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8856-7922
Universidad Nacional de La Pampa6, Argentina
anabelabbona@gmail.com

Abstract:

Identity processes —including those engaging indigenous communities— are developed in the context of specific historically-shaped discursive formations and practices. In La Pampa province, knowledge concerning indigenous populations was actively promoted by the provincial government, by calling researchers in the fields of archaeology, anthropology and linguistics to work in a series of cultural policies intended to “rescue roots”. Within the framework of a project analysing the construction of regional cultural configurations, this paper analyses how those studies were born, which institutional networks were created around them, and which visions on indigenous peoples were promoted. The intense work developed throughout three decades allowed to bring information to create discourses about ‘provincial identity’, while demarking boundaries and chances for indigenous militancy, which would become visible since the 1990s.

Keywords: identity, cultural policies, research, region.