This essay examines milestones in the life history of one subject, Mauricio Lepin, and his involvement in the Chilean social uprising. By exploring the encounter of his trajectory with the uprising, the essay reveals under-explored dimensions of the anticolonial character of this critical event in Chile's history of the present. Lepin's case shows the entanglement of a long history of dispossession and resistance of the Mapuche people with a biographical story of social marginalization, political exclusion, and economic precariousness, shared with large majorities of Mapuche and non-Mapuche youth. It concludes by analyzing how, through the uprising, Lepin appears before himself as an actor among a multitude in struggle by putting into action the plural right to appear and the self-determination of a sovereign people.
Mapuche Anticolonial Politics and Chile's Social Uprising
Angel Aedo is associate professor in anthropology at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and alternate director at the Millennium Institute on Violence and Democracy Research. His research interests concern destabilizing difference, anthropology of security, prison society, (il)legalities, critical migration and border studies, policing, affects, aesthetics, and politics. His work has recently appeared in Anthropological Theory, Security Dialogue, Critique of Anthropology, Social Anthropology (Anthropologie Sociale), Anthropological Forum, Journal of Material Culture, Journal des Anthropologues, Antípoda, and Revista de Estudios Sociales. Among his published books are Experts et Technologies de Gouvernement: Une Généalogie des Think Tanks au Chili (Experts and Technologies of Government: A Genealogy of Think Tanks in Chile) (2012) and La Dimensión más Oscura de la Existencia: Indagaciones en Torno al Kieri de los Huicholes (The Darkest Dimension of Existence: An Inquiry into the Kieri of the Huichols) (2011). Email address: [email protected].
Oriana Bernasconi is professor of sociology at Alberto Hurtado University, where she also serves as codirector of the Interdisciplinary Research Program on Memory and Human Rights. She is an associate researcher at the Millenium Institute on Violence and Democracy Research. Her work examines contemporary subjects and subjectivities and how societies confront state violence and its legacies. Recently she edited the books Sujetos y subjetividades: Aproximaciones empíricas en tiempos actuales (Subjects and Subjectivities: Empirical Approaches in Current Times) (2022) and Resistance to Political Violence in Latin America: Documenting Atrocity (2019) (Documentar la Atrocidad: Resistir el Terrorismo de Estado [2021]). Her latest articles appear in Subjectivity, Discourse and Society, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Colombia Internacional, Antipoda, and Boletín de Estética. Email address: [email protected].
Damián Omar Martínez is postdoctoral researcher “María Zambrano” at the Department of Sociology, University of Murcia (Spain), and Research Fellow at the Viodemos Institute on Violence and Democracy Research (Chile). With a background in philosophy and social theory, he works at the ethnographic intersection between anthropology and qualitative sociology. He has conducted ethnographic research in Murcia and Santiago de Chile, on topics like urban diversity, ethics, politics and morality, temporality, and more recently, environmental future-making in Mar Menor, Spain. He has published in journals such as Social Anthropology (Anthropologie Sociale) and Anthropological Journal of European Cultures. Email address: [email protected]
Alicia Olivari is postdoctoral researcher at the School of Anthropology of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the Millennium Institute on Violence and Democracy Research. Her main lines of research are the construction of collective memories and their sociopolitical effects, intergenerational transmission, political violence, and collective action. She has published in Psicologia and Sociedade, Clepsidra, Bitácora Urbano Territorial, Revista de Antropología Social, and Endoxa. Email address: [email protected]
Fernando Pairican holds a PhD in history from the University of Santiago. He is lecturer at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and researcher at the Millennium Institute on Violence and Democracy Research. His research has focused on the history of the Mapuche movement, the uses of colonial violence, Mapuche political organizations, and their contributions to democracy. Among his recent books are Nueva Constitución y Pueblos indígenas (New Constitution and Indigenous Peoples) (2016); Wallmapu: Plurinacionalidad y Nueva Constitución (Wallmapu: Plurinationality and New Constitution) (2020); Küme Mongen, Suma Qamaña, Mo Ora Riva Riva: Ensayos y propuestas para una Constitución Plurinacional (Küme Mongen, Suma Qamaña, Mo Ora Riva Riva: Essays and proposals for a Plurinational Constitution) (2021); and Malon: la rebelión del movimiento mapuche 1990–2013 (Malon. The Rebellion of the Mapuche Movement 1990-2013) (2014). Email address: [email protected].
Juan Porma is a history teacher, holds a master's in applied social sciences, and is a PhD candidate in history at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He has worked on the history of Mapuche communities with an emphasis on readings of colonial violence. His recent work focuses on the study of Mapuche politicians in the mid-twentieth century and the transition of the contemporary Mapuche political movement that uses violence as a means of resistance. Email address: [email protected].
Angel Aedo, Oriana Bernasconi, Damián Omar Martínez, Alicia Olivari, Fernando Pairican, Juan Porma; Mapuche Anticolonial Politics and Chile's Social Uprising. South Atlantic Quarterly 1 January 2024; 123 (1): 214–224. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-10924623
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