Borders, Development, and Territory in Argentina: Indigenous Mobilization in the Central Chaco

• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Valeria Iñigo Carrera
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19879140
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X19879140

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 234, Vol. 47 No. 5, September 2020, 199–211

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19879140

© 2019 Latin American Perspectives

199

Borders, Development, and Territory in Argentina

Indigenous Mobilization in the Central Chaco

by

Valeria Iñigo Carrera

Translated by

Margot Olavarria

One of the bases for the mobilization of indigenous peoples in Argentina in recent years

has been access to, use of, and ownership of the natural resources contained in the territory

they occupy or claim. Political mobilization among the Qom of Potae Napocna Navogoh

in the central Chaco is a response to the modalities of intervention for development and

territory configurations involved in capital accumulation that have threatened the possi-

bility of their reproduction, and it involves conflict with both private capital and the state

for territory rather than for land.

Una de las bases para la movilización de los pueblos indígenas en Argentina en los

últimos años ha sido el acceso, uso y propiedad de los recursos naturales contenidos en el

territorio que ocupan o reclaman. La movilización política entre los Qom de Potae Napocna

Navogoh en el Chaco central es una respuesta a las modalidades de intervención para el

desarrollo y las configuraciones territoriales involucradas en la acumulación de capital

que han amenazado la posibilidad de su reproducción, e involucra conflictos con el capital

privado y el estado por el territorio antes que por la tierra.

Keywords: Borders, Development, Territory, Indigenous mobilization, Central Chaco

Notably since the 1990s, Argentina has seen the emergence and spread of

indigenous political action emerging from the assertion of ethnic identity and

centered on claim making on the local, national, and/or transnational level.

This action is taking place in the framework of the current recognition of a plu-

ralist national identity. Together with the recognition of difference, the struggle

for territory and natural resources is the main issue underlying indigenous

Valeria Iñigo Carrera is an anthropologist and a researcher with Argentina’s National Council of

Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) at the Institute for Research on Cultural Difference

and Change (IIDyPCa) of the National University of Río Negro and the CONICET. Margot

Olavarria is a translator located in New York City. This article is a product of research carried out

between 2008 and 2015 in the framework of projects funded by the University of Buenos Aires and

CONICET. A version of it in Spanish, “Fronteras, desarrollo y territorialidad en Argentina: A

propósito de la movilización indígena en el noreste formoseño,” appeared in Pueblos indígenas,

Estados nacionales y fronteras. edited by Héctor Hugo Trinchero, Luis Campos Muñoz, and Sebastián

Valverde (Buenos Aires: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2014). The

author thanks the evaluators, whose comments enriched the final version of the article.

879140LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X19879140Latin American PerspectivesIñigo Carrera / Indigenous Mobilization in the Central Chaco

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