Urbanisation of Indigenous identities or indigenisation of the city? Reflections on the Mapuche case in Santiago de Chile

Location:

Teams Online

Time:

Wednesday 27 April 2022, 12:15–13:00

Contact:

Dr Corinna Patterson - c.patterson@bangor.ac.uk

Dr Dana Brablecova - Bangor University

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This presentation explores the dynamics of space appropriation and resignification by Indigenous groups in cities. The research is sheltered by the operationalisation of Indigenous spatial praxis from the margins of the White-mestizo city, suggesting the (re)emergence of new forms of relational urbanism that presage pluriverse socio-political futures for those “urban Indigenous”, thus overcoming the mestizo normativity of cities in the Global South. In more detail, and drawing on empirical information collected through ethnographic fieldwork, the seminar examines three approaches followed by Mapuche groups to create a sense of belonging in the concrete jungle: the production of their own Indigenous places, the use of Indigenous symbols in strategic locations and moments, and the conquest of previously denied political spaces. In this way, the Mapuche are giving new meanings to their identity and to the cities they inhabit while configuring the conception of belonging to what constitutes or not the current Indigenous territory.