"Territory is memory, and memory is territory". Camiare reflections and dialogues on memories, spaces and Indigenous Identities

Abstract

This contribution is geared towards reimagining and reflecting on topics such as Camiare (comechingón) Identity, Territory and Memories and the urge to review the complex bound between History (as a means to discipline) and Memory (pointing to the memories of populations who were subalternized) that is born as a result of that reflection. This approach stems from a critical decolonial perspective that fights to make the colonial hierarchy between academic knowledge and Native People’s knowledge visible by taking the concepts of “fragmented memories” and “restoring Memories project” that have been previously worked on by anthropologists in Argentina for that goal. Likewise, the article tries to focus on the weight that sacred sites –the so-called “Earth Beings” or “significant alterities” that remain present throughout some spatialities in the Sierras- and some particular objects hold during the task of retracing. We share and signify some experiences of current Native families –communalized or not- with the goal of collecting the gateways through which the self-affirmation identity processes occur. Finally, last but not least, we analyze the State’s role (from the colonial period down to the democratic present alike) in erasing not just Native People’s journey after the expropriation of their lands during the late 19th century but also certain Memories that, as previously mentioned, present themselves as incomplete, fragmented or weak.