Intercultural processes of territory-heritage recovery and management in the Calchaquí valleys, Tucumán, Argentina
Résumés
Intercultural work performed in association with indigenous and rural communities has followed at least two parallel lines of involvement, which only rarely have crossed: cultural heritage and territory. Our own experiences in relation to this subject allow us to describe the intimate relationship that these two concepts have when the time comes to jointly produce contents with political meaning for these communities.
Interculturalism, in turn, is considered in terms of objectives and utopias, which we must deconstruct in order to situate ourselves in a reality that remains difficult for us to understand. We discuss these practices in the context of cases from the Calchaquí Valley in northwest Argentina. We compare two cases, Amaicha del Valle and Quilmes, and then especially focus on the second of these two communities and its struggles not only for territory but also for its most precious heritage site, the Sacred City of Quilmes.
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Introduction
- 1 Patricia Arenas ″De la participación en Tucumán del Relevamiento Territorial de la Ley 26160: una m (...)
1This article is a re-written version of the three papers that we presented at the workshops that gave rise to this set of publications, submitted at the request of the editor.1 The common thread here is to retell, as well as to rethink, our experiences in the field of cultural resource management in the valleys of northwest Argentina, especially in relation to the restitution of the Quilmes Indian Community's Sacred City. The essence of our joint reflection involves the ways in which the past and present intertwine in the materiality of objects and places. In our particular case, we discuss the identity claims of the Quilmes and our experiences in performing intercultural work with them, and we do so in view of territory and heritage — two sources of tension with the government of Argentina's province of Tucumán and with the individuals who claim to hold land titles. We then attempt to interlink various lines of reflexion regarding the ways in which certain internal and external discourses crosscut the identity of the indigenous communities in this province, underlying the practices that have developed as part of their struggles to claim their rights.
2In this paper we discuss some of the difficulties we have encountered in terms of developing policies for intercultural management of land and heritage in collaboration with the indigenous communities making ownership claims. Our results reveal the multiple tensions that can exist in relation to ethnic identity claims, where the legitimacy of these is questioned by some local landowners, as well as by the provincial government as a result of its interest in local resources (tourism, heritage, etc.).
3In part, this work also incorporates some reflexions from one of the authors (PA) about her involvement with the Technical Operations Team that is implementing the Indigenous Community Territorial Survey Program in the province of Tucumán, under the framework of Argentina's National Law 26610. Factors such as the multiplicity of actors involved in this research, the variety of perspectives on the reality of what is being claimed, tensions in the territory, and the configuration of the Technical Team itself, allow a series of reflexions to be presented regarding the ethno-identity processes taking place in the province.
4Our experiences and perspectives are enriched by almost 15 years of working on this subject as professionals in archaeology (JGA and MAK) and anthropology (PA), and by working on research and management teams in a variety of locations (Amaicha del Valle, Quilmes, El Bolsón Valley, El Mollar and Qhapac Ñan, among others). However, we have centred our focus here on the particular perspective from Quilmes, both for the sake of temporal continuity and because all three of the authors are presently involved in this case. We compare this situation with the one found at Amaicha, a location that is close to Quilmes in terms of both distance and history.
5The two aspects that we take up here are intimately linked, and therefore one cannot be understood without the other. We first propose the concept of territory as a central ideology surrounding indigenous claims, and one that is also central to the disputes with the national government or other individuals who claim to hold land titles. This axis also articulates with heritage, in that it not only involves possession of an "asset" in the sense of real estate (the land), but also an asset that gives meaning to all of life, and which therefore requires an engagement with history and its various types of tangible and intangible objects (ceramic vessels, burials, documents, world views) in order for the claims to be understood. The economic underpinnings of these tensions are somewhat beyond our expertise, although we know that heritage resources are coveted in terms of tourism. It is a classic theme in the social imaginary to assume that significantly greater amounts of money are generated by admission fees to the Sacred City of Quilmes than by other enterprises in the area. However, although economic considerations might add some additional elements in explaining the denials of legitimacy that the communities must endure in relation to their "ethnic identity" and their "practices of ethnicity", there is still a lack of accurate data on the income generated by these tourism activities, so this must remain a subject for future research.
- 2 Néstor García Canclini, Diferentes, desiguales y desconectados. Mapas de Interculturalidad. p. 166. (...)
6Definitions of heritage and territory can vary depending upon the author, but they do possess a collective component, and this is what we are interested in exploring. We begin with the assumption that in all horizontally organized work there is a utopia that guides us. In our case we have taken construction of an authentic type of intercultural work as our utopia, in the sense of a guide to give our efforts direction. According to Canclini, "the utopias of change and justice can in this way be made to articulate with the cultural studies project, not as a prescription for how we must select and organize the data, but as a stimulus to investigate the (real) conditions under which reality can cease being a repetition of inequality and discrimination, and instead become a situation where the others are recognized”.2
- 3 M. Alejandra Korstanje, Marcos Quesada, Mariana Maloberti, Julieta Zapatiel, Araceli Ruberto, Patri (...)
7Criticism of ethnocentric practices in the social sciences has been aimed especially at the fields of anthropology and archaeology. Academic anthropology, in general, despite having distanced itself from an ethnocentric, essentialist perspective on indigenous peoples, has not been training a sufficient number of professionals specialized in rural life, with interest becoming focused instead on urban areas. Archaeology has also had to reorient its practices, adapting to hybrid research environments and responding to unsatisfied societal demands. It therefore has had its knowledge restructured with new questions, assumptions, and responses.3 Under these circumstances, where research problems have moved beyond the material cultural of the past, it is also important to point out that the authoritative status of archaeological and anthropological discourse has become unsettled.
Considering the intercultural setting
- 4 Among which we find ourselves as "the University", despite the fact that this institution is crossc (...)
- 5 In the Territorial Survey of Argentina's Law 26160, presumed titleholders are considered to be thos (...)
- 6 García Canclini, op. cit., p.166.
8The social, political, and cultural settings within which community members carry on their daily lives are cross-cut by interests that can turn a community into a highly conflicted territory. Competing interests including agencies from the various branches of Argentina's national government,4 NGOs, the communities themselves, and those who claim to hold land ownership titles5 produce a variety of images that can either legitimize or delegitimize a community's status as native people. These discourses operate on the relations among the various parties involved in the politics that are generated, above all those that cause these same communities to be constituted as legal entities through their claims for territory. In this work, therefore, we are guided by Canclini's conviction that "to the extent that the specialist in cultural or literary or artistic studies wants to perform solid scientific work, his final objective is not to represent the voices of the silenced, but to understand and name the places where their demands or their everyday lives enter into conflict with others”.6
- 7 Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira. Etnicidad y Estructura Social, Colección M. O. de Mendizábal, (version (...)
9In order to think about and analyse the production of identity images from within these territories, we follow Brazilian anthropologist Cardoso de Oliveira, who believed that ethnic identities are constructed as the result of an ideological structuration of the collective representations derived from the dyadic and contrasting relationships between "ourselves" and "the others".7 This means that a theory of ethnic identity requires hermeneutic approximations and the authentication of observations and questions. As such, identity is a construction created by societies in order to express their otherness in the face of others, as well as to organize their conduct. The explicit discourse of identity is made visible when the behaviour that it involves becomes visible. This does not imply that the discursive aspects are not legitimate in themselves, but that narratives cannot be understood except within the context that produces them.
- 8 Llorenç Prats, Antropología y patrimonio, 2nd Edition, Editorial Ariel, 2004, 171 p., ISBN 84-344-2 (...)
- 9 Prats, op.cit., p. 22.
10In this sense, although identity is also materialized through heritage, it does not cease to be a point of tension. In fact there are various ways of referring to it, with the most classic being those that enter into clear contradiction with these ideas of identity being constructed via collective representations, since they make reference to heritage as a static inheritance, belonging to a community. Although today we can start to see a general consensus in which heritage is viewed as a social construction — or in other words, something that does not exist as given and established but which instead is the product of invention or manipulation — heritage is still understood through the intervention of social or cultural hegemony.8 However, for heritage to be constituted as such it must be activated. This is tantamount to articulation of a discourse that will later be supported by various references with which we will remark upon its ideological aspect, neither neutral nor innocent, which puts another field of interests into play. Up until now, who has been responsible for this activation? The answer to this question is the national government and the scientific fields in their various forms. The determining factor for the concept is its symbolic nature, its ability to symbolically represent an identity, and since it has materiality it is not uncommon for actions involving appropriation, substitution, or destruction to occur.9
- 10 sensu Cardoso, op. cit.
11Taking these two concepts as a starting point — construction and a symbolic nature — we can now articulate our experiences of working together with the communities. From our perspective, we can say that heritage has been constructed in the same manner as ethnic identity10, in the sense that it is the result of an elaboration to differentiate between "ourselves" and "the others", or perhaps better put, between "what we have" and "what we are" and "what distinguishes us from them". Nevertheless, this heritage typically defined as collective in nature and in tension with the outside must take root, must have continuity, and must enjoy a minimum degree of consensus in order to constitute itself as such and to become established over time. This complex process finds its material form in the territory.
12When we refer to a territory, we do so while taking into account its social construction, or in other words, the distinct ways in which the space is appropriated by a variety of actors. Culture, memory, historical processes, and conflicts are all part of the tensions projected towards the inside of the territory itself. Although the territory remains a material place with its geography, its physical environment, and its natural and cultural resources, it is also a social product — a lived space. In the case of indigenous communities, a variety of territorialities are constructed from various positions and superimposed, sometimes under circumstances that are antagonistic and constantly tense. The territory is valued by the communities and claimed in exclusivity, supported by material and non-material links to ancestral knowledge.
13In this case, social consensus is an important factor for bonding and solidarity, in that it is a basic component of a "feeling of being ourselves". From a political point of view, social consensus mitigates the recourse to violence for resolving conflicts and creating conditions of order. From this perspective, the process of legitimation, that is, the sequence of events that instil legitimacy, is produced not by using the national government's set of entities as a reference point, but by using other collective membership groups, such as, for example, an indigenous community or a religious congregation.
14Opinions will always differ on the legitimacies of the communities and their claims, but disputes regarding their place in Argentina or their rights will depend upon the configuration of the political situation at any given time. Something will be seen as legitimate to the extent that it makes the value of a freely given consensus effective, but such a consensus will be political and construed in the moment. Illegitimacy is part of the construction of legitimacy.
- 11 The materials analysed were interviews performed in the class “Anthropological Methodology for Arch (...)
15In the analysis of the sources that one of us has performed11 with respect to the rights of the indigenous communities, primordialist perspectives could be found, which explain the construction of identity by emphasizing the intensity of lived, collective social links as fundamental aspects of the constitution of the individual. There are also those who sustain that ethnic identity is an extension of the kinship relationship, to the extent that an ethnic group tends to assume a common ancestry and shared connections by blood. This perspective places emphasis on the cultural aspects of the construction, with individuals feeling linked to each other by lived connections that are "natural" and irreplaceable. These discourses circulate in terms of the characterization of Tucumán's indigenous communities, when mention is made of their customs, aspects of their culture, and their linkages by blood, all of which give legitimacy to their identity as Indians.
- 12 Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman, La construcción social de la realidad, Amorrortu Eds. 1973, Buenos (...)
16On the other hand, there are constructivist discourses that insist upon the constructed nature of the identities of ethnic groups, where there is evidence for historical, linguistic, and cultural components in this construction. There are also imaginary ones, bound more to the dimensions of identity that to its political consequences, and more concerned with understanding this social construction along the lines of analysis first proposed by Berger and Luckmann12 in their pioneering work. The communities trying to appeal to processes and to history are the same as those making these constructions.
17However, the majority of the discourses sustain a view bound to instrumentalism, in which ethnic identity is essentially a resource for political mobilization, manipulated in order to attain certain ends, and where the ethnic groups are defined as interest groups. They claim that the indigenous communities only form groups in order to make demands against the government, or else when the communities are being manipulated in order to obtain specific ends.
- 13 Fredrik Barth, Introducción. Los grupos étnicos y sus fronteras. (1st English Ed. 1969) 1976, Méxic (...)
- 14 Miguel Bartolomé, Los laberintos de la identidad: procesos identitarios en las poblaciones indígena (...)
18The generative or interactionist viewpoint was defined by Fredrik Barth13, and was utilized by several generations of anthropologists because of its dynamic and interactive perspective. Barth described a disassociation of the ethnic group from the traditional relations with a specific culture, and proposed the idea that the interactions that regulate and orient social relations do so through the presence of interaction boundaries, generating categories of self-enrolment and enrolment by others. In this way, communities can legitimately self-enrol for their identity configuration. Identities are constructed (this is his processual aspect) in a process of identification. "Original or essential identities, or true or false ones, do not exist. Each one of these identities is manifest within a specific historical context in a specific territory, and these are not accessible to evaluative analysis by anthropologists, because they are lived as a totality by their protagonists".14
- 15 Bartolomé op. cit.
19The delegitimizing discourses that produce images also express a perspective on community activism. These discursive constructions cannot be understood except with a view towards the inside of their own field. This is why ethno-political movements are created in privileged fields, in order to analyse the identities in action. In other words, when ethnic identity is manifested as ethnicity it can represent a totalizing assignment that orients social and political behaviour and can lead to radical confrontations. It is therefore worth differentiating ethnic identity as a collective social representation from ethnicity understood as identity in action, or as the political emergence of identity. The de-legitimization is oriented not only towards the ethnic identity, but also towards the practices of the ethnicity.15
From indian to subjects under the law
- 16 Eduardo J. Arnoletto, Glosario de Conceptos Políticos Usuales, Ed. EUMEDNET 2007, full text at http (...)
20On a pathway that passes from the label of Indian to that of citizens subject to the law, a series of ideas and images are generated that can establish trends in the way that legitimizing/delegitimizing processes take place. Within the context of recognition policies, indigenous communities have campaigned aggressively for their legitimacy. This legitimacy evokes the idea of something authentic, fair, equitable, and reasonable. From the perspective of political theory, it denotes a certain consensus that ensures appropriate social behaviour without the need to resort to coercion or methods of legal repression. Legitimacy, guaranteed by the recognition, is an integrating element in political relations. However, for legitimacy to exist there must be a consensus, or in other words, an agreement or affinity between the members of a society, based firstly upon cultural values and norms, and at deeper and more intricate levels, upon the desirability of the objectives and the proper means for achieving them. Such a consensus can exist at two levels: over the rules of the political game, which is more important, and over specific, instrumental ends or means.16
- 17 http://odhpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Resolucion-4811-96.-Creacin-del-Registro-de-Comunidades (...)
- 18 Arenas, op. cit., 2011b.
21In Tucumán, the discourses are centred on the lack of legitimacy of the identity enrolment system for members of the indigenous communities. The essence of this issue is made manifest through the granting of a status as a legal entity. In October 1996, Argentina's Ministry of Social Development passed resolution 4811 regarding the legal entity status of the indigenous communities. Based upon the country's national constitution, this resolution confirms that relationships among members of indigenous communities entered "in the registry must be ruled by guidelines of a historical, cultural, and associative nature, which the communities themselves understand, since they are the ones who best understand how to defend all of the interests that affect them".17 The problem seems to be that for some people, the criteria upon which the legitimacy of indigenous communities is based should be verifiable through the application of scientific methods, and not through a process of cultural self-enrolment or by means of a cultural genealogy. Instead, they want the Indians to show their credentials of authenticity. This lack of consensus on the criteria that should be used to define the Indians produces conflicts that end up in the local media, both in articles and in comments from readers. In terms of the formation of legal entities, the national government is criticized for its inability to resolve questions of who is legitimate and who is not.18
22The indigenous communities configure their identity based upon a traditional form of legitimacy, which is a type of adhesion and support that emerges with time from historical recognition and popular tradition. While legality is a purely legal concept, legitimacy is a political concept, more subtle and more debatable. What defines a person's status as an Indian? Is it their history, their ancestry, the purity of their lineage, or their allegiance to cultural traditions? Is it something that a person can just feel, or just say? Modern Tucumán was built on a discourse of the "dead Indian": disappeared, turned to stone, an icon of Tucumán's culture of the past. In public discussions, emphasis is placed on the blood as a link to identity. Given the full scope of the heritage that is at stake, both territory and material culture, there are demands that the communities receive a certification of authenticity. This form of verification for belonging to an indigenous community would have to involve the application of genetic compatibility tests using DNA, at least in the opinion of some non-indigenous groups specifically competing for some type of interest (land, tourism, resources, etc.).
- 19 Eric R. Wolf. Europe and the People without History. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1 (...)
23All of this calls into question the historical, social, and biological continuity with the nation-state, which has operated by disinheriting the indigenous, plundering their remains and suppressing their identities, and converting their material and symbolic cultural heritage into the object of scientific study by archaeology and anthropology — but not without first converting them into men and women without history in the sense of Eric Wolf.19
- 20 Arenas, op. cit., 2011a.
24In regard to territorial demands, the lack of title possession would be an argument for invalidation, although this demonstrates a lack of comprehension of the processes carried forward by the indigenous communities in relation to their struggles for their territories. The notion of ancestral territoriality began to gain significance when the conception of the territory began to be politically reconstituted, moving beyond its role in economic subsistence to become the space where language, justice, ancestral traditions, and cultural identity could be preserved. In the construction of the notion of ancestral territory, a determining role was played by the history of indigenous struggles for recovery and preservation of the land. However, the contribution coming from national and international jurisprudence has also been important because of the recognition that the communities have fundamental rights.20
- 21 Arenas, op. cit., 2011b.
25In the discussions analysed in the media and on the Internet, the rights to ancestral territories are devalued by assertions that indigenous communities have been the victims of corrupt politicians who alienate them with false expectations in order to dismantle the communities. The disparagement of politics as an activity also appears as part of the discourse, where the indigenous communities are seen as victims of the spurious interests of a political class that does nothing more than hold negotiations for its own benefit. Then there is the appearance of the "army of lawyers" who show up to litigate on behalf of the communities, but only to gain benefits and above all to gain access to the land. The communities might also be seen as the victims of the "human rights" advocates who deceive the people. Here the communities are presented in an infantilized manner, in other words, as minors in age who need to be taught, and in the practice of such teaching they are betrayed by the government. There are others who claim that the indigenous communities are "an invention to get money out of international agencies", and who are certain that there are no more Indians left in Argentina. Such discursive, vilifying strategies seem to exist in direct proportion to the interests in play with respect to the territories.21
Structured and structuring identity from territorial demands
- 22 We use the concept of interculturality in the sense of C. Walsh (…) when referring to the indigenou (...)
26In the last few decades, the indigenous peoples of Latin America have played a notable role in bringing visibility to their struggles to achieve specific demands, above all those linked to claims on ancestral territories. Countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador, just to name two examples, have generated national public policies that include, at least as their explicit objectives, policies for recognition of cultural diversity. These two countries, which share a common history of colonial plunder, have done this in different ways. This has generated distinct intercultural policies (not multicultural policies),22 since these can bring with them a new political epistemological paradigm, that is, a distinct vision of society that allows for new social creations.
27In recent years in Argentina a series of claims have been filed by native peoples. Far from just suddenly appearing onto the scene as if they were part of some sort of current political engineering, these have had many years of development in the past. In the particular case of Tucumán claims were made during the 1970s, although these were interrupted by the country's military dictatorship. There is documentation that links the Quilmes Indigenous Community with negotiations with the national government in 1973. According to the same chiefs from Tucumán, the claims today have become centred on recognition of territories, an end to poverty, and access to full civil rights.
- 23 National Constitution art. 75.17: “To recognize the ethnic and cultural pre-existance of the indige (...)
- 24 See the complete version at: http://www.ilo.org/public/spanish/region/ampro/lima/publ/conv-169/conv (...)
28These discussions are able to move forward because of the existence of a legal umbrella. In the context of strong neoliberal policies in the 1990s, the indigenous communities entered into the National Constitution of 1994 with their ethnic and cultural pre-existence recognized (art. 75 subsec. 17).23 This was a political event that marked the beginning of a new stage for relations between the national government and Argentina's native peoples. Later, in 2000, Argentina ratified the International Labour Organization's Convention no. 169, which entered into force in July 2001.24 The ratification of this agreement made it a part of Argentina's body of national law, and this implied the recognition of even more rights for the native peoples than they were granted at that time under the National Constitution. In this convention, the rights that the government recognized for the Indigenous Peoples included the integrity of their culture and lands, their forms of social, economic, and political organization, and their traditional indigenous law. This is how a new chapter was opened up in terms of relations between the national government and the indigenous communities, and it is therefore within the scope of this legal framework that the communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and Argentina itself begin to operate politically. Discussions regarding the scope of these recognition strategies clearly demonstrate the tensions related to the construction of rights, since all interventions in this territory bring practical and symbolic consequences for all of the parties involved, and conflicts of interest that often become antagonistic.
- 25 This document, produced collectively in workshops and other discussion forums, was delivered to Arg (...)
29In 2010, more than 37 native peoples-nations met at the National Congress of Indigenous Peoples for Territorial Organization (ENOTPO by its Spanish acronym), and they signed a document known as the Bicentennial Pact. This document expressed the demands of the indigenous communities in the face of the national government's public policies, under the slogan "to decolonize the nation is to confront the profound inequalities and transform them into proposals for social justice and true participation of the peoples". This agreement emphasizes territorial claims and compliance with Law 26160, which creates the programme for territorial redistribution for indigenous communities. It also calls for legal regulation of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, a right frequently subjugated by the national government as well as by mining corporations and other companies in the extractive industries focused on natural resources. The creation of an intercultural indigenous government ministry with the active participation of the indigenous peoples was also added to the proposals, as was compliance with the Audiovisual Media law (Law 26522) for restitution of the public voices of the communities. A quota law was also requested that would allow participation in the country's executive, legislative, and judicial power structures, in addition to other demands related to health programmes that include traditional medicinal practices, replacement of symbols, street names, monuments, and paper currency designs that glorify the genocide committed against Argentina's native peoples, and the development of lines of research on the genocidal acts perpetuated.25
Two modes of community organization: quilmes and amaicha
30Our own involvement in the subject of heritage takes place within this matrix of tensions focused on identity, legitimacy, claimants, and claims, all of which revolve around a main axis of territory. Therefore, in order to understand how the process of territory-heritage reclamation operates in terms of the pressure applied by any of these factors, in this section we compare our experiences with two indigenous communities: Quilmes and Amaicha. These communities are not far separated in terms of geographical distance in the province of Tucumán, and they also share an early historical background.
- 26 The Quechua name for this position is taken from traditional Inca road-running messengers.
- 27 Constitución Política de la Comunidad Indígena de Amaicha del Valle. 2004.
- 28 The Community of Amaicha was studied from a political anthropology perspective by Alejandro Isla, L (...)
31The Indigenous Community of Amaicha del Valle is located in the Tucumán province's portion of the Calchaquí valleys. Its government consists of a General Assembly with maximum authority, a Council of Elders, a Head Chief or Curaca, a Chasqui,26 a Youth Council, and Secretaries of Territory, Community Development, Finance, Cultural Education and Spirituality, and Social Health and Action.27 The holder of the Chief or Curaca position is rotated every four years. Amaicheña identity revolves around the royal decree that granted them legitimacy for possession of their territory.28
- 29 The quotations from the Royal Deed are taken from the transcription published by Isla (2002: 51-53) (...)
32By means of a Royal Deed in 1716, the King of Spain legally recognized the ancestral possession of aboriginal territory by the “Chief of the peoples of El Bañado, Quilmes, San Francisco, Tiopunco, Encalilla, and Amaicha”.29 This is an iconic document for both the Quilmes and Amaichas, as it recognizes them as “legitimate owners of these lands, to be possessed by them and their descendants.” However, during the 19th century the Amaicha territory was recognized by Argentina's government at the time, but the Quilmes territory was not, and part of the Quilmes lands subsequently passed into private hands.
33In both community territories there are two coexisting, intertwined political-administrative institutions. The first is known as the comuna, which is the administrative agency that follows provincial laws, and the other is the Indigenous Community. In Amaicha there was also a case where the same person occupied both political roles at the same time, causing the community's decisions to be duplicated.
- 30 Chief. Note that the legal name for the Amaicha’s chief is Curaca, which is the in the lost local k (...)
- 31 Statute of the QIC, Article 19.
- 32 Statute of the QIC, Article 22.
34The territory of the of Indian Community of Quilmes (CIQ by its Spanish acronym) from the Diaguita Calchaquí Nation includes about 65,000 hectares, which were included in the granting to "Cacique30 Francisco Chapurfe" that took place in 1716 through the same Royal Deed. However, today this area has been reduced to only 206 hectares. In contrast to the Amaicha, the Quilmes Council of Delegates is the entity responsible for the community's governance and administration, and its top authority figure is the General Chief or Cacique. The Indian Community of Quilmes is organized31 by means of a Base Assembly, a Council of Delegates, the General Assembly of the Community, and the Council of Youth, Women, and Elders. Each representative's function is to maintain custody of the "territory to which he belongs and he therefore must repel intrusion by persons or institutions from outside of his community”.32
35The Community has 14 Base Communities. From north to south along National Route 40, these include Colalao del Valle, Anjuana, El Bañado, Quilmes Bajo, and El Paso. The communities in the low- and mid-foothill areas in the eastern range of the Sierras del Cajón (or Quilmes) include the communities of El Pichao, Anchillo, El Arbolar, Las Cañas, Quilmes Centro, Rincón de Quilmes, Talapazo, Los Chañares, and El Carmen, all at various distances from this same highway.
Some background to our joint work in the cultural territory
- 33 Carlos Aschero, Patricia Arenas, Jorgelina García Azcárate, M. Alejandra Korstanje, Roberto Molinar (...)
36Our first case of being called up to evaluate archaeological sites in the interest of making a re-emergent heritage visible took place in 1995, when we were contacted by the Indigenous Community of Amaicha del Valle through their Cacique at the time. His main interest was in developing an archaeological tourism programme, which would require an "evaluation" of the sites themselves. As professionals we were surprised to be phoned up by an indigenous community in order to work together, since up until then the process had been the opposite: we were the professionals who looked to the communities to give value to the practice of archaeology. "As archaeologists and/or anthropologists who often question the social transferability and application of our scientific work, there was no doubt that the possibility of carrying out this project, where we were contacted by those who are identified as direct descendants of this past, was very attractive to us."33
- 34 Aschero et al, op. cit., p. 9.
37Unlike the case with the Quilmes, in Amaicha there was no talk at first of ethnic or identity claims. This was no coincidence, since the Indigenous Community of Amaicha had be recognized as such very early on, which allowed it to be constituted as the first community with territorial recognition in northwest Argentina: "... the Royal Deed is transmitted orally and continues to live in the memory of the Amaicha people as an element of negotiation with the national society, and it is an element of communal identity. This allows a hypothesis to be advanced where the foundations of identity are not passed on by linguistic unity or any other type of unity, but by territorial unity. To be a member of the Amaicha Community is to be a communal owner of the land."34
38However, the Amaicha community already had a Peruvian cultural advisor, who rapidly brought Incan ideals from central Peru into the valley's culture, importing new traditions that in his perspective had been forgotten, but which represented a part of the valley's cultural heritage. For example, the archaeological sites were to be considered as "sacred" (above all the monumental sites), and the performance of washing and prayer rituals in the rivers was required prior to entering the sites.
- 35 Alejandro Parra, ″Etnopedagogía y Nuevos Paradigmas en Educación. Un abordaje a los modelos de ense (...)
39In spite of this community's characteristic of having a certain degree of rootedness where ethnic and territorial demands were not evident, a group of young people from the town of Los Zazo (belonging to the same community) initiated a strong and lasting movement based upon reclaiming indigenous traditions for cultural purposes. The Amauta Eco-School and Museum was an example of a model different than the Incan one imported from Peru into so many parts of northwest Argentina. There, activities related to the local ancestral memory were promoted, as was the reclaiming of ancient traditions, development of a new relationship with nature based upon traditional values, recognition of the elders, and transmission of identity knowledge to the children.35
- 36 Carlos Aschero, Víctor Ataliva, Lorena Cohen, Marisa López Campeny, and Carolina Somonte, Arqueolog (...)
40In this context, the project that we were called about and the associated archaeological research work for the community lasted until the point where internal strife, which even led to the election to two parallel chiefs, made it impossible for us to continue. However, it is important to clarify that the collaborative paradigm, in spite of being somewhat upside-down, still had a strong impact on academia in terms of how to do things (times, places, the role of research, conservation and museology, etc.). Although the experience was brief, Amaicha had the necessary initial conditions to become one of the first cases in northwest Argentina where a collaborative relationship was established between archaeologists and the community, and where we as archaeologists were active in terms of the proposals, requests, requirements, and cultural cannons of the community, while at the same time contributing our own vision regarding cultural heritage and its management.36
- 37 Marisa Lazzari, ″El pasado-presente como espacio social vivido″ In Identidades y materialidades en (...)
41Not long afterwards, one of the chiefly lines put a stamp of identity essentialism and ethnic claims over all of cultural heritage management. For example, for the first time archaeologists were required to perform offerings to Pachamama prior to excavating, and community observers had to be present during all of the work. An indigenous quota was also requested for teachers in the region and bilingual Spanish-Quechua teaching was proposed for the schools, among other measures. Identity was not playing a differentiating role against the external "other" but instead in terms of the scope of the community itself, just as illustrated by the networks referred to by Lazzari in relation to their reversibility and capacity for transformation.37
- 38 Northwest Argentina Rural Development Project, sponsored by the national government.
42Our intercultural heritage co-management work with the community of Quilmes had a different dynamic. The CIQ had been working with various entities from the national government on production-based issues (for example, a Social Agriculture-Ranching programme through PRODERNOA).38 Some requests arose from these meetings regarding heritage, especially directed towards archaeologists. It was within this context that the need arose for a Letter of Agreement between the Quilmes Indigenous Community and the National University of Tucumán's Institute of Archaeology and Museum, where this letter would arrange and give shape to the collaboration between the two entities. It was signed in 2004, with the main objective of regulating the performance of all work related to preservation of cultural and natural heritage.
- 39 The full text can be found reproduced in Bárbara Manasse and M. Alejandra Korstanje, Academia - Soc (...)
43In 2007, in collaboration with the Quilmes community, the then-Secretary of Culture for the province, the NGO Fundación Tiempos, and Marisa Lazzari, the university's Institute of Archaeology and Museum organized the "First Meeting of Community and University Cultural Managers". This meeting had an open agenda and mainly represented a chance to get together, talk, and listen — there was no objective other than discussion of heritage management. This meeting was held in the Quilmes community's meeting room, and representatives were invited from the Union of Diaguitas and Lules Peoples as well as from various NGOs, universities, public entities related to tourism, culture, and education, and the valley's residents in general. After two days of work, all of the points seen as problematic had been discussed, and solutions were proposed as a product of these same debates. Since it seemed like the situation regarding the site of Quilmes synthesized all of the problems involved, it was decided that a declaration should be signed. This declaration demanded that the provincial government "agree to and propose modes of managing and protecting the cultural heritage in a joint manner. It is demanded that the laws that guarantee participation in the management of the cultural and natural resources in the national and provincial environments be applied for the indigenous communities and/or membership communities making the demand".39

Figure 1: The first meeting between local representatives of various groups involved in regional cultural management
44
- 40 The initial teams included participation by Dr Verónica Williams and Dr Lorena Rodríguez and team, (...)
- 41 Jorgelina García Azcárate, Delfín Gerónimo, M. Alejandra Korstanje and Marisa Lazzari, ″Quilmes: Th (...)
45These developments opened up new possibilities for working jointly on an iconic case such as Quilmes, with hopes that this horizontal model could be reproduced in other communities and continually improved. We thus began to work on a project with the Quilmes Indigenous Community called "Sacred City of the Quilmes: An Inter-Institutional Proposal for a Two-Year Work Plan (2008-2010)". For this project we also invited other professionals as well as national and international teams,40 in an effort to confront this challenge by forming a solid group that was well trained in the subject. The focal points of the work had been agreed upon with the Quilmes community, and in the majority of the cases these included tasks involving research, training, and conservation as requested by the community itself.41

Figure 4: Archaeologists, Geodesist, and Local Guides of the Sacred City discussing the mapping strategy for the site and the features to be considered
46
- 42 M. Florencia Becerra, M. Victoria Pierini, Lorena Rodríguez, Bettina Sidy and Sandra Tolosa, ″De ol (...)
47Because of space limitations, we cannot go further here into the results, difficulties, stagnant periods, or factors that weakened or strengthened our efforts, but something of this can be taken from the other articles in this collection.42 It is important to keep in mind that in addition to this joint work, as a separate matter the Quilmes Indigenous Community is maintaining its litigation against the provincial government in relation to possession and management of the Sacred City.
48Current approaches for intercultural work with indigenous communities consist of “face to face” communication meetings. Archaeologist uses this approach to explain about what their work consists of and to start making participative archaeology. Dedicated professionals make strong efforts in conducting meetings with small groups. For this purpose, many well-known anthropological techniques are used (semi-structured interviews, open interviews, informative panels, workshops, etc.). Many times the output of using these techniques to communicate with people from different cultures depends on the particular commitment and skills of the professionals involved. Nevertheless, these custom-established systems prove to be unsuccessful when trying to go beyond the opinion of leaders in the established structure.
- 43 Fernando Korstanje and M. Alejandra Korstanje. Participatory Projects In Rural Context: When A Good (...)
49This participatory scope requires a new communicational methodology. We propose here to adapt a participatory method (proven in multiple peasant communities to face productive problems) to the context of the patrimonial challenges of this century43
- 44 http://www.cdesco.org/experiencia/planeacion/s-planeacion3.html & Justification of Resources
50A key aspect of the project is to develop a fully collaborative site-management plan. For this it is of utmost importance to implement the methodology designed by the NGO Latin American Centre for Participatory Development and Communication (CDESCO). The methodology aims at training rural community leaders to plan and manage collective decision making with the assistance of visual technology. The approach is implemented through a series of community learning workshops, aimed at focused discussion and sequential decision-making process. Both goals and discussion procedures follow community logistical realities and needs. The approach combines both an open-ended flexible strategy with very specific goal-oriented activities supported by interactive media (e.g. reflexive video films, knowledge exchange exercises) to support rapid results44.
51
52

Figure 8: Audiovisual recordings facilitate the dissemination of the knowledge developed in meetings and discussions through the use of images and language selected by local people
53For example, the mapping and site survey methodology is designed to accompany this multi-stage incremental decision- making process, by producing interim reports and tangible outputs that will provide a platform for the discussions and collective decisions. When designing the management plan for the Sacred City, we are concerned about the fact that decisions should be taken not only by the leaders of the CIQ, but through participation of the entire dispersed community, especially its youngest members
Structured and structuring identity from heritage claims
- 45 Gabriela Karasik, ″Haciendas, campesinos y antropología: conflictos sociales y colonialidad en el e (...)
54In direct contrast to the idea of using archaeological heritage merely as a discursive tool, Karasik45 documented the legitimacy of heritage claims long before indigenous organizations would make such demands from themselves. Already in the comments of archaeologists who carried out excavations in the early 19th century, this author observed that in texts from the first decades of the 20th century (e.g., Ambrosetti or Debenedetti), as well as in the 1940s (e.g., Casanova, Vignati, or Márquez Miranda), difficulties in the anthropological work linked with their presence were already being reported. These authors noted the reticence shown by the locals towards working on the archaeological sites, towards touching the remains, towards going into certain areas associated with their ancestors, or towards providing information about archaeological sites, all of this as resistance against external intervention in their territories.
- 46 García Azcárate and Korstanje, op. cit.
55Taking up again the idea that there is a utopia that guides intercultural work, we can detect some points of tension that are in themselves a constitutive part of this process. On one hand, there are situations that develop from within the community organization and from the legitimation practices for decisions made within the communities themselves, and on the other hand, there are our own tensions and efforts to adapt to these processes.46
- 47 Guillaume Boccara and Paola Bolados, ″Qué es el multiculturalismo? La nueva cuestión étnica en el C (...)
- 48 Formally, Argentina is a country where jurisdictions and authorities are divided between the nation (...)
- 49 Llinas, op. cit.
56One of the limiting principles in terms of performing genuine intercultural work is that, in reality, the communities do not have autonomy as such. Although in legal terms there have been advances towards the recognition of indigenous rights, these are only relative with respect to management of territory and heritage.47 Although we all make up part of the nation and the province, the indigenous communities have a different legal status as recognized by the national government (art. 75 subsec. 17 of the National Constitution) and by other laws and agreements covering particular situations (Convention no. 169 of the ILO, Law 25517 on Restitution of Indian Remains, and Law 26160 on Emergence of Community Property). However, application of these is uneven and the regulations still show some weaknesses. As the law is written, the government cannot set limits on its responsibility over subjects that it considers to be under its protection, including cultural heritage assets (National Law 25743 and Provincial Law 7500). Furthermore, if these assets are found in spaces linked to the communities, ceding or sharing management duties becomes a complex situation. On one hand, the government cannot take charge of them for a variety of reasons, including lack of resources, the long distances often involved, and the lack of suitable personnel with training in how to adopt an intercultural perspective. These are some of the more technical reasons, although there are also political reasons why the national and provincial governments are not ready to share their responsibility for heritage.48 This shows the lack of credibility and a lack of confidence in accepting the rights and responsibilities of the communities in terms of managing their own assets, and therefore it is not even feasible to plan for co-management. Since there is also a lack of mutual understanding of the paradigm of cultural patrimony and territory as belonging to the communities, condescending, assistance-based policies are applied, with meetings held to approve signed and sealed packages but without any understanding of what it really means to respect the need for Free and Informed Consent from the communities. Because of this, in the end such practices put a formal new face on the same government hegemony.49
57In reality, the main problem is rooted in the same formulation of the recognition of the communities' pre-existence, as made explicit in the constitutional reforms of 1994. Although the national government recognizes this pre-existence, delimitation of the territories has only recently begun to take place, and therefore the cultural and natural assets that may have been within the territory continue to be managed by the provinces, at least for now. Nor is there any guarantee that once territorial delimitation occurs the heritage and natural resources that may lie within a given territory will be fully recognized. In order for this to happen, the laws protecting national and provincial heritage must also be updated, since they do not take this reality into consideration. As the law currently stands, it is the provincial government that is in charge of protection, and the communities are only advisors (and only in some individual cases).
- 50 The Community believes that this was not a "seizure", since they were taking back what belonged to (...)
- 51 Curiously, it is the Tucumán Tourism Entity and not the Tucumán Cultural Entity that is in charge o (...)
58The case of Quilmes is a typical example, since it is the provincial government that expropriated the land where the Sacred City is located as a "government-private" island within the territory of the Quilmes Indigenous Community. The site was recovered through a seizure by the community in 2008,50 and the community is now managing it in its entirety. Since then there have been lawsuits as well as roundtable discussions, both tripartite (the Quilmes community, the Tucumán Tourism Entity,51 and the Institute of Archaeology and Museum) and bipartite (the community and the tourism entity), then finally a deadlock in the negotiations.

Figure 10: An example of how contradictions are negotiated and embraced by the community in order to obtain consent: their own promotional material for the archeological site calls them “Ruins of Quilmes” (as the tourists know it), but the contact e-mail offered is ciudadsagrada@ (as the community calls it).
59Another aspect to keep in mind — as a limitation for us since it makes continuity in management more difficult — is that the leadership in the community may be ephemeral and is not always respected. In addition to the "legally accepted" ones there are other mechanisms for participation that can surprize us and at times make the task of dialogue more difficult. A multiplicity of new speakers can arise, who are not necessarily the community's legal representatives but who act as such, if only temporarily. Although it is not up to us to determine which representatives may be legitimate, we must at times wonder which "Community" we are working with. Should we negotiate with these emerging but non-legitimized leaders? With whom do we carry out our dialogue and form our consensus?
- 52 Cristophe Giudicelli and Maité Boullosa, D’un Indien l’autre. Les avatars de l’identité diaguita-ca (...)
60We mentioned above that another one of the difficulties found in working with heritage and territory under an intercultural paradigm is rooted in our own limitations as far as the discursive positioning that cuts across all practice, saturating even the materiality of the places from which it is spoken. Categories spring up for the parties involved to be assigned into, and these make the dialogue more difficult. There is talk of "us" and "them", even though ideally we would like to assume a horizontal relationship. This may occur because in the valleys of Argentina the re-emergence of indigenous identity has been based upon ethnic differentiation,52 in part because the fact that the territory is under construction, the language has been lost, and the cultural and natural resources are not managed by the community. We have been surprized to hear the category "the white man" applied to us, although it is a category that the native populations have used out of their need to differentiate themselves. However, each binary difference presents a hierarchy (Indian=good, white man=bad, Indian=unmotivated, white man=industrious, etc.), and this is upsetting for us.
- 53 Boccara, op. cit.
61In an intercultural and horizontal action, probably the only real contradiction comes in the form of construction of knowledge. If it is true that we humans construct our own present from formal logic (although also from more esoteric thoughts not openly assumed, such as mystical beliefs, signs, horoscopes, etc.), then the instruments of management and access to funding are designed exclusively from the perspective of formal logic, the scientific tradition, and technocracy. Part of the problems is rooted in the fact that, in general, rural peoples tend to devalue their own knowledge, and this devaluation is rooted in certain urban sectors. This devaluation is also sustained to some degree by academics, who have the background necessary to present, for example, joint projects that require specific academic forms and guidelines in order to seek funding. The "us" and "them" again becomes obvious when communities face the difficulties of writing their own project proposals and confronting their need for technical support from various types of organizations. Thus when it comes to accessing and applying for project funding, "we" are better prepared, and our differences again become evident. During the planning of the project and its execution we can exchange ideas, discuss objectives, and work together, but once again when it comes time for producing reports, academic language must again be produced, perhaps even in a foreign language, as a task that again falls upon the technicians. Social domination is based upon inequalities in the distribution of certain types of capital: cultural, technical, symbolic, and informational.53 It is also mediated materially by experience and skill with the use of technological paraphernalia (mobile phones, slide shows, microphones, laptops, pen drives) to which not everyone has access, but which when used provide legitimacy as true symbols of status and knowledge. For example, with increasing frequency the use of such technologies is presented as a symbolic differentiator between the community's leaders and the rest of its members.
- 54 Boccara, op. cit.
- 55 Norman Long, Sociología del desarrollo: una perspectiva centrada en el actor, 1st Edition, Mexico, (...)
62In addition to these differences in terms of capital, the ability to speak persuasively is another limitation to horizontal action, whether possessed by the urban speaker or the rural one. In the first case, the words of some social agents carry more weight than those of others,54 as far as the speed of the speech or the use of complex terminology or semantic constructions (or if not complex, then using language still far removed from the local vocabulary). In cases where the speaker is the local community member, the time of delivery tends to be more prolonged, with pauses and abundant examples, which can overwhelm those who manage their time more strictly in consonance with the notion of time as a scarce resource. In the best of cases, the dialog leads to achievement of some common ground, which we could compare to the idea of a "social interface".55
- 56 Boccara, op. cit.
63This difference, between those who can speak with authority and be listened to and those who are barely heard because of the words they use, is made possible and takes place in the various situations of dialog because the weight of history is not taken into consideration, nor is the weight of the social structures that establish this asymmetry.56 To break down this inequality during times of dialogue in the construction of joint and shared knowledge that tends towards the horizontal, we make an effort to minimize our differences, although we must also note that the resources we use to do this produce a new inconvenience. We generate a new type of differentiation when we mark our presence in verbal interventions. In each new encounter with the same community, we face the need to explain once again our ethical perspective and our good intentions. We represent a type of choreographed ritual where we again present repeated reaffirmations of our social and ethical commitment to the community and its cause. In turn the community members also participate, time and time again emphasizing their position and their symbolic and material possessions, legitimized by the spirits of their ancestors and by Pachamama.
64This is not something voluntary — it is required. To some degree we all must play a "character", that is, we intensify and clearly display our good intentions and the ethics that our practices try to put forth. We simplify our language for better general comprehension, and we try to minimize our differences in background (such as by dropping titles from our names, making jokes, using local sayings, etc.). However, we also unconsciously adopt very ethical language, which may be direct and strong, appealing to good feelings. All of this is influenced by the efforts we make in order to be better understood, not only in terms of our knowledge but also in terms of our good intentions.
65In the end we must ask ourselves two things. First, where does this need come from? Do we actually have more respect for rural or indigenous ethics? Second, does this constant need to show good intentions actually obscure an undercurrent of distrust that we are unable to free ourselves from, or to justify ourselves, to let go and speak in more everyday language without being dependant upon the formalities? It can be said that all communication has elements of performance and ritual, but these rules bother us because it is like starting over each time. What may be established and accepted at one meeting is always revised at the next one, in light of this distrust that archaeologists have generated through bad practices in the past. We are distanced from those archaeologists, but we cannot escape being homogenized with them as a professional group. This prevents us from moving forward in a simpler manner with collaborations based upon the agreements established, or from generating diffuse perspectives on all of those things that we propose doing together.
Conclusions
- 57 Jorgelina García Azcárate and Verónica I. Williams, ″Ruinas o Ciudad Sagrada? La construcción de un (...)
66Here we have presented some reflections that have arisen for us in relation to the topic of professional practices in archaeology and anthropology, within a context of intercultural management of heritage and territory in the portion of the Calchaquí valleys found in the province of Tucumán. Since heritage is a continuous, dynamic construction, it acquires meaning only to the extent that it is associated with spaces/territories that have histories and trajectories. In the cases discussed here, heritages in the form of constructions, objects, forms, knowledge, movements, and presences are linked in order to make up these communities, with their conflicts and with their agreements. Within this type of dynamic, heritage and territory have been considered by the government as separate resources with their own respective values: heritage as a cultural asset inherited from the past and territory as an asset with economic utility that is not available through negotiations with the national government. An example of this differentiation is seen in the Sacred City of Quilmes, where the land ("parcel") expropriated in 1982 by means of Law 5401 was 206 hectares. The plans showing the measurements and divisions make it clear that the limits of the territory have been based upon use of the site as a tourism attraction, and that areas left out include a considerable extension of lands that in the past were used for crop planting, residences, and a broad area where natural resources were obtained.57 These various perspectives are what cause us to maintain that we cannot separate heritage and territory, because they form an indivisible whole.
67Other cases in which we have participated differ in some aspects related to the manner of connection and positioning vis-à-vis "the other" in intercultural actions. These differences can be linked to structures, perceived security, and effective possession of the territory, but also to contradictions and internal tensions within the community group itself. In cases were the original rural population does not represent an indigenous community with territorial claims (and which therefore had no need to make use of identity differentiating tools), the differentiation of positions is much more lax. In such cases, differentiation takes place along axes such as urban/rural or degree of formal education, but the intercultural dialog is less influenced by the prejudices that exist in asymmetrical relations.
68In the same way, the fact of whether or not the rural farming populations of Argentina's northwest are enrolled as an indigenous community strengthens or weakens the links between identity, heritage, and territory. This strength is made discursive and practical at the same time, and to some degree has been changed and enriched not only by the contributions of increasing participation by community leaders in national and international meetings, but also by increasing preparation and the strong or weak condition of the same indigenous or rural communities, along with their greater or lesser involvement in these processes as social actors according to their priorities as a group.
69Based upon our experiences on the land in the contexts discussed above, our position as women performing university research, and also as representatives of the national government, has entered into crisis. Our status as university researchers by training is compromised by the communities' demands for autonomy and self-determination, and above all by their demands for territorial exclusivity in terms of managing resources of any type. Oftentimes the national government remains distrusted despite its advances on political and legal issues and new processes of visibility for claims. It carries an immense debt and often remains trapped in hegemonic thinking, which is carried on, at times unintentionally, in the face of the autonomy demanded by the communities. The communities are aware of these processes and point them out. As for ourselves, we must continue to reflect upon epistemological (and methodological) questions, in order to avoid a return to colonial practices.
Fotos: diversos integrantes del equipo de colaboración con la CIQ
Notes
1 Patricia Arenas ″De la participación en Tucumán del Relevamiento Territorial de la Ley 26160: una mirada desde las prácticas″. In Taller: Las identidades como redes socio-materiales: perspectivas desde Sudamérica y más allá, 2011, Horco Molle, Tucumán, Argentina.
Patricia Arenas ″Ni indígenas, ni aborígenes, ni originarios, ni preexistentes… (Primeros Apuntes)″. In Workshop: Identities as socio-material networks. Past and present configuration in South America and beyond, University of Exeter, UK, 15-16 September, 2011.
Jorgelina García Azcárate and M. Alejandra Korstanje, ″¿De las utopías de quiénes estamos hablando? Acerca de la gestión intercultural del patrimonio arqueológico con comunidades indígenas en el NOA″. In Taller: Las identidades como redes socio-materiales: perspectivas desde Sudamérica y más allá, 2011, Horco Molle, Tucumán, Argentina.
2 Néstor García Canclini, Diferentes, desiguales y desconectados. Mapas de Interculturalidad. p. 166. 1st Edition, Barcelona, Gedisa Editorial, 2004, 223 p., ISBN 84-9784-044-5.
3 M. Alejandra Korstanje, Marcos Quesada, Mariana Maloberti, Julieta Zapatiel, Araceli Ruberto, Patricia Cuenya, and Ingrid Aguilar Villacorta, ″The social role of archaeologist and other researchers in distant rural areas″ Session: People, Places and the Researcher. Abstracts of the Conference: People, places and stories, 2011, p. 38-39. Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden.
4 Among which we find ourselves as "the University", despite the fact that this institution is crosscut by enormous differences in ideologies, methodologies, and staff stability.
5 In the Territorial Survey of Argentina's Law 26160, presumed titleholders are considered to be those "owners" who 1) do not hold titles over the land, 2) have titles, but who do not show them, 3) show titiles that must be studied for veracity, and 4) who may have them, but who do not have land posession.
6 García Canclini, op. cit., p.166.
7 Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira. Etnicidad y Estructura Social, Colección M. O. de Mendizábal, (version in Spanish found in the expanded Brazilian edition of 1976). Mexico: CIESAS, 1992.
8 Llorenç Prats, Antropología y patrimonio, 2nd Edition, Editorial Ariel, 2004, 171 p., ISBN 84-344-2211-5.
9 Prats, op.cit., p. 22.
10 sensu Cardoso, op. cit.
11 The materials analysed were interviews performed in the class “Anthropological Methodology for Archaeologists”, in the Archaeology program at the National University of Tucumán, as well as texts of comments from the Internet regarding specific events that involved indigenous communities during 2010 and 2011. Arenas, op. cit., 2011b.
12 Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman, La construcción social de la realidad, Amorrortu Eds. 1973, Buenos Aires.
13 Fredrik Barth, Introducción. Los grupos étnicos y sus fronteras. (1st English Ed. 1969) 1976, México, FCE.
14 Miguel Bartolomé, Los laberintos de la identidad: procesos identitarios en las poblaciones indígenas. Avá [online]. 2006, n.9 [cited 2012-11-01], p. 28-48. Available at: <http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1851-16942006000100003&lng=es&nrm=iso>. ISSN 1851-1694.
15 Bartolomé op. cit.
16 Eduardo J. Arnoletto, Glosario de Conceptos Políticos Usuales, Ed. EUMEDNET 2007, full text at http://www.eumed.net/dices/listado.php?dic=3
17 http://odhpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Resolucion-4811-96.-Creacin-del-Registro-de-Comunidades-Indgenas.pdf
18 Arenas, op. cit., 2011b.
19 Eric R. Wolf. Europe and the People without History. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982.
20 Arenas, op. cit., 2011a.
21 Arenas, op. cit., 2011b.
22 We use the concept of interculturality in the sense of C. Walsh (…) when referring to the indigenous discourse that claims that interculturality does not ask for recognition and inclusion (multiculturality) in nations where colonialism is internally reproduced, nor does it agree with the neoliberal ideology, except to recognize indigenous participation in the national government with equality and to recognize the colonial difference and the colonialism of the power that still exists. C. Walsh, Interview with Walter Mignolo: www.oei.es/salactsi/walsh.htm.
23 National Constitution art. 75.17: “To recognize the ethnic and cultural pre-existance of the indigenous peoples of Argentina. To guarantee respect for their identity and the right to a bilingual and intercultural education; to recognize the legal status of their communities as well as their communal possession and ownership of the lands that they have traditionally occupied; and to regulate the delivery of other lands apt and sufficient for human development; none of these shall be alienable, transferrable, or susceptible to levies or embargos. To ensure their participation in the management of their natural resources and the rest of the interests that affect them. The provinces can concurrently exercise these attributions".
24 See the complete version at: http://www.ilo.org/public/spanish/region/ampro/lima/publ/conv-169/convenio.shtml
25 This document, produced collectively in workshops and other discussion forums, was delivered to Argentina's president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner on May 20, 2010, during the Bicentennial Week for the May Revolution.
26 The Quechua name for this position is taken from traditional Inca road-running messengers.
27 Constitución Política de la Comunidad Indígena de Amaicha del Valle. 2004.
28 The Community of Amaicha was studied from a political anthropology perspective by Alejandro Isla, Los usos políticos de la identidad. Indigenismo y Estado, Editorial de las Ciencias Buenos Aires, 2009, 278 p. ISBN: 987-20200-4-3. He shows how tensions, which are expressed in the actors, appear in collective identity constructions, and how these lead to alliances and negotiations, both day-to-day and strategic. The factions mobilize their followers and negotiate with the national government.
29 The quotations from the Royal Deed are taken from the transcription published by Isla (2002: 51-53).
30 Chief. Note that the legal name for the Amaicha’s chief is Curaca, which is the in the lost local kakan language, and for the Quilmes is Cacique, which originally derives from a Caribbean native language although the term is now used far more extensively in the Americas.
31 Statute of the QIC, Article 19.
32 Statute of the QIC, Article 22.
33 Carlos Aschero, Patricia Arenas, Jorgelina García Azcárate, M. Alejandra Korstanje, Roberto Molinari, and Eduardo Ribotta, ″El presente del pasado: La propuesta de los amaicheños″. Actas de las Jornadas de Antropología de la Cuenca del Plata, Vol. III, p. 68-73. Escuela de Antropología de Rosario, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Rosario, Argentina, 1997.
34 Aschero et al, op. cit., p. 9.
35 Alejandro Parra, ″Etnopedagogía y Nuevos Paradigmas en Educación. Un abordaje a los modelos de enseñanza en culturas no-occidentales″. M.S. thesis, Universidad Abierta Interamericana, 2003 In: http://imgbiblio.vaneduc.edu.ar/fulltext/files/TC050536.pdf.
36 Carlos Aschero, Víctor Ataliva, Lorena Cohen, Marisa López Campeny, and Carolina Somonte, Arqueología e identidad… o identidad de la arqueología en la comunidad indígena de Amaicha del Valle (Tucumán, Argentina). Textos Antropológicos, Volume 15, Number 2: 263-276, 2005. Universidad Mayor de San Andrés. La Paz, Bolivia.
37 Marisa Lazzari, ″El pasado-presente como espacio social vivido″ In Identidades y materialidades en Sudamérica y más allá (primera parte). Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos 2012 [Online], Current issues, Online since 02 October 2012, accessed on 30 October 2012. URL: http://nuevomundo.revues.org/64017; DOI: 10.4000/nuevomundo.64017.
38 Northwest Argentina Rural Development Project, sponsored by the national government.
39 The full text can be found reproduced in Bárbara Manasse and M. Alejandra Korstanje, Academia - Society Articulation: the I.A.M. in the management of Cultural Resources. In: Rastros en el Camino. Trayectos e Identidades de una Institución. P. Arenas, C. Taboada, and C. Aschero (eds), p. 125-145. Volume 80 years of the IAM. EDUNT (UNT), Tucumán, 2010. ISBN 978-987-1366-72-9. 141 p.
40 The initial teams included participation by Dr Verónica Williams and Dr Lorena Rodríguez and team, from the Department of Philosophy and Letters (Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires); Dr Estela Noli and Prof. Margarita Arana (Universidad Nacional de Tucumán); the Latin American Centre for Development and Participatory Communication (CDESCO by its Spanish acronym); the Fundación Tiempos NGO; Dr Marisa Lazzari (University of Exeter, UK) and Dr Maité Boullosa (Université d’ Amiens, France). For special requirements, such as training or site conservation, management plan, mapping, etc., the collaboration of other qualified professionals was requested.
41 Jorgelina García Azcárate, Delfín Gerónimo, M. Alejandra Korstanje and Marisa Lazzari, ″Quilmes: The story of the 17th Century genocide, and the historical reparation that still fails to come″. Simposium: Cultural Heritage, Social Justice and Ethical Globalisation, 2007, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.
42 M. Florencia Becerra, M. Victoria Pierini, Lorena Rodríguez, Bettina Sidy and Sandra Tolosa, ″De ollitas y paredes volteadas a urnas y monumento patrimonial. La Comunidad India de Quilmes y las resignificaciones del sitio arqueológico a partir de la reconstrucción″. Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos [Online], Current issues, online since 02 October 2012, accessed on 30 October 2012. URL: http://nuevomundo.revues.org/64017; DOI: 10.4000/nuevomundo.64017.
43 Fernando Korstanje and M. Alejandra Korstanje. Participatory Projects In Rural Context: When A Good “Face To Face” Communication Is Not Enough. In press in: Journal of Community Archaeology, 2013.
44 http://www.cdesco.org/experiencia/planeacion/s-planeacion3.html & Justification of Resources
45 Gabriela Karasik, ″Haciendas, campesinos y antropología: conflictos sociales y colonialidad en el extremo noroeste argentino en la primera mitad del siglo XX″ Travesía, Revista de Historia Económica y Social, 2010, p. 197.
46 García Azcárate and Korstanje, op. cit.
47 Guillaume Boccara and Paola Bolados, ″Qué es el multiculturalismo? La nueva cuestión étnica en el Chile Neoliberal″. Revista de Indias, 2010, vol. LXX, no. 250.
María Luz Endere, ″Patrimonio Arqueológico, Legislación y Turismo en la Argentina″. Etnia, 1995, p. 40-41.
48 Formally, Argentina is a country where jurisdictions and authorities are divided between the national and provincial governments.
49 Llinas, op. cit.
50 The Community believes that this was not a "seizure", since they were taking back what belonged to them. http://lagaceta.com.ar/nota/253020/informacion-general/indigenas-mantendran-toma-ruinas-quilmes-durante-fin-semana.html.
51 Curiously, it is the Tucumán Tourism Entity and not the Tucumán Cultural Entity that is in charge of the subjects of cultural heritage and archaeology, and that administers the Sacred City and hold dialogues with the Quilmes Indigenous Community. This is because the site has always been seen by the provincial government primarily as a tourism resource, and it is still seen that way.
52 Cristophe Giudicelli and Maité Boullosa, D’un Indien l’autre. Les avatars de l’identité diaguita-calchaquí (Nord- Ouest argentin – 16ème/21ème siècle). Mundos Nuevos, 2005, IIe Journée d'Histoire des Sensibilités EHESS.
53 Boccara, op. cit.
54 Boccara, op. cit.
55 Norman Long, Sociología del desarrollo: una perspectiva centrada en el actor, 1st Edition, Mexico, CIESA, 2007, 489 p. ISBN 970-762-016-1 (Colsan).
56 Boccara, op. cit.
57 Jorgelina García Azcárate and Verónica I. Williams, ″Ruinas o Ciudad Sagrada? La construcción de un paisaje social vivo″ In Workshop: Identities as socio-material Networks. Past and present configuration in South America and beyond. University of Exeter, UK, 15-16 September 2011.
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Légende | Figure 1: The first meeting between local representatives of various groups involved in regional cultural management |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-1.jpg |
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Légende | Figure 2: One of the CIQ’s leaders speaking at the meeting |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-2.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 280k |
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Légende | Figure 3: After workshops and discussions meals are always shared to celebrate the encounter |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-3.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 456k |
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Légende | Figure 4: Archaeologists, Geodesist, and Local Guides of the Sacred City discussing the mapping strategy for the site and the features to be considered |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-4.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 480k |
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Légende | Figure 5: Knowledge is shared in both directions |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-5.jpg |
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Légende | Figure 6: Small group discussions of project aims |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-6.jpg |
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Légende | Figure 7: Tree diagrams developed in small groups are shared with the main assembly |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-7.jpg |
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Légende | Figure 8: Audiovisual recordings facilitate the dissemination of the knowledge developed in meetings and discussions through the use of images and language selected by local people |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-8.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 92k |
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Légende | Figure 9: The pedagogic tool kit is prepared to be disseminated to larger groups |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-9.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 188k |
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Légende | Figure 10: An example of how contradictions are negotiated and embraced by the community in order to obtain consent: their own promotional material for the archeological site calls them “Ruins of Quilmes” (as the tourists know it), but the contact e-mail offered is ciudadsagrada@ (as the community calls it). |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/docannexe/image/65988/img-10.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 1,2M |
Pour citer cet article
Référence électronique
M. Alejandra Korstanje, Jorgelina García Azcarate et Patricia Arenas, « Intercultural processes of territory-heritage recovery and management in the Calchaquí valleys, Tucumán, Argentina », Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos [En ligne], Questions du temps présent, mis en ligne le 15 octobre 2013, consulté le 26 mars 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/65988 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/nuevomundo.65988
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Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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