Abstract
This chapter charts the evolution of classic land conflicts in the Tucumán province of Argentina into ethnic mobilizations. Inspired by the country’s adoption of ILO Convention no. 169 and the establishment of a National Indigenous Institute, a mobilization of leaders and young intellectuals got under way among the Diaguita-Calchquies people, supported by law students and experienced national and even some international activists. The chapter is based on a comparison of the communities of Amaicha—a unique case where ever since the colonial period the land has been managed collectively—and Quilmes, where sharecroppers have lived and worked under the sway of landowners. In the process of ethnogenesis, legal campaigns were accompanied by political pressure and social mobilization, even occasionally confrontation with landowners. In the end, recognition was achieved and land recovered in one of the cases.
Translation by David Lehmann.
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Notes
- 1.
Ley sobre Política Indígena y Apoyo a las Comunidades Aborígenes, no. 23,302, September 1985.
- 2.
‘Expropiación al ingenio y refinería San Martín de Tabacal permite restitución territorial’ reproduced by Argentina Indymedia http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2011/08/790700.php
- 3.
‘I will return and there will be millions of me’.
- 4.
The Spanish colonial regime conceded to encomenderos the labour tribute owed to the crown by the indio population—so they received free, quasi-slave, labour.
- 5.
Antonio Bussi (1926–2011) was named military governor of the province of Tucumán in 1976 and during his two years as governor more than 1000 people are said to have disappeared at the hands of the security forces in ‘Operativo Independencia’. Eventually in 2003, he was convicted of the disappearance of one single person, but in the meantime, as a skilful practitioner of clientelist politics, he had been elected to various positions on eight occasions.
- 6.
Kolla refers to the inhabitants of the higher plateaux of Northern Argentina. In the past it has had a pejorative ethnic connotation, but with the indigenous renewal it has become a source of pride for people involved in the movement.
- 7.
This fits in with accounts of native militancy in many parts of the world; see Bosa and Wittersheim (2009).
- 8.
See the legal website: http://www.biblioteca.jus.gov.ar/. The original Spanish reads as follows: Reconocer la preexistencia étnica y cultural de los pueblos indígenas argentinos. Garantizar el respeto a su identidad y el derecho a una educación bilingüe e intercultural; reconocer la personería jurídica de sus comunidades, y la posesión y propiedad comunitarias de las tierras que tradicionalmente ocupan; y regular la entrega de otras aptas y suficientes para el desarrollo humano; ninguna de ellas será enajenable, transmisible ni susceptible de gravámenes o embargos. Asegurar su participación en la gestión referida a sus recursos naturales y a los demás intereses que los afecten. Las provincias pueden ejercer concurrentemente estas atribuciones.
- 9.
All traditional collective land institutions have a system of periodic redistribution to reflect demographic changes, migration, family size as well as shifts in local power structures.
- 10.
The sensitivity of this matter is illustrated by an internet exchange concerning a landowner who gave some land to a municipality: in the communication, the word ‘give’ is placed in quotes and a tweet from the Indian organization Unión de los Pueblos de la Nación Diaguita contests the implied legitimate ownership.
- 11.
- 12.
http://pueblooriginario.com.ar/facebook. The Facebook page entitled ‘Pueblo Originario Kilmes’ however seems to be defunct, or at least inactive.
- 13.
The discourse of these CIQ leaders bears a resemblance to that of Indian leaders in the USA described by Dean MacCannell. In order to emphasize their difference, they drew attention to the moral and cultural decadence of whites and at the same time proclaimed the superiority of Indians (MacCannell 1992: 162).
- 14.
The moments immediately before the killing of Javier Chocobar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZq_mzJSO5M
- 15.
- 16.
The comuniqué denounces 13 killings in the northern and north-western provinces of Formosa and El Chaco, plus that of Javier Chocobar.
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Boullosa-Joly, M. (2016). The Ethnicization of Agrarian Conflicts: An Argentine Case. In: Lehmann, D. (eds) The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Latin America. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50958-1_4
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