Chilean identity and the Mapuche alterity in Tomas Guevara's thought

• Grant number: 12/50498-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2012
• End date: April 30, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of America
• Principal Investigator: Darío Horacio Gutiérrez Gallardo
• Grantee: Mariana Moreno Castilho
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 13/20257-6 - National identity and the Mapuche alterity in Tomas Guevara's thought, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This project seeks to understand how Mapuche's image and alterity were formed in Tomás Guevara's works (1863-1935). Guevara was a member of Chilean cultural elite in the context of early twentieth century, he was dean of Temuco's Lyceum and also a precursor in the development of Mapuche's ethnographic studies, becoming a reference for studies made after him. In these works, Guevara highlighted a story that was repeatedly silenced by historiography of the nineteenth century and in the end of twentieth century it began to be reevaluated. Guevara's focus in himself and in the Mapuche entangles in the light of the social imaginary of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century context. During this period, currents such as evolutionism and positivism, along with the concepts of race, culture, education, civilization and nation, were regrouping and articulating in the speech order of a cultural elite eager to reshape the Chilean national identity and the ideal of chilenidad. From these studies of Guevara's work we intend to see how the image of Mapuche was being molded in his writing from the boundary of alterity, where the native represents the interdict in this search of an ideal of homogeneous national body that aimed to build the nation. (AU)