People of the Land: Indigeneity and Politics in Argentina and Chile (Penn Global Seminar - PGS)

Catalog description

This undergraduate seminar compares the evolution of relations between States and Indigenous peoples and movements throughout the Americas, with a particular focus on the Mapuche people of the Patagonia region, in the south of nowadays Argentina and Chile. The main goal of the course is to comparatively study the organization of Indigenous communities and analyze their political demands regarding plurinationality, self-determination, territory, prior consultation, living well, and intercultural education and health, as well as the different ways in which States repress, ignore, or address such demands. The course starts by reviewing what does it mean to indigenize and decolonize the academy and political science. We then focus on the controversial question of who is Indigenous and comparatively assess the legal answer to this question in different countries of the Americas. Next, we tackle the issue of research methodology and positionality of the researcher, the ethics of studying Indigenous peoples, and using in-depth interviews as a tool for social science research. After briefly reviewing some of the consequences of the conquest and colonialism, we study the topic of global Indigenous rights and politics and from there we zoom in the politics of Indigenous peoples in Argentina, and the Mapuche of Neuquén, in particular. In the last part of the course, including during our travel component, we delve into what are the main issues that Mapuche communities of Neuquén confront in the present: from territorial land claims, to interactions with extractive industries, co-management of natural resources with the National Parks Service, intercultural education, and intercultural health, among other topics.