Mapuche Identity and Mobilization in Chilean Dictatorship and Democracy in Chile, 1983–98

            The current struggles of the Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous group, against state repression of their cultural rights is a heterogeneous front whose origins lie, at least in part, in the social movements of the 1980s, and the subsequent return to democracy in 1990. My paper expands on the narrative of 1980s mobilization in Chile to elucidate Mapuche participation in the national protests, show the connection between Mapuche and other political/anti-dictatorial movements, and demonstrate the influence these connections had on the shift in Mapuche mobilization after the return to democracy in 1990. My paper develops several key aspects regarding the link between Mapuche mobilization and the eclectic social movements of the 1980s. By examining various underground Chilean newspapers and pamphlets from the 1980s, ephemera from Mapuche cultural movements, documents from the military junta, and oral interviews, I analyze the discursive exchange among state, local, and inter-regional groups to develop how anti-Pinochet activists understood, incorporated, or rejected one another’s racial, gender, and class identities in the process of consolidating particular political and cultural alliances. This examination aims to achieve a broader understanding of not only Mapuche participation in popular politics and the effects it had on the formulation of Mapuche identity, but also the process by which outside political organizations and agents of the regime understood and negotiated with Mapuche demands. Such an examination will develop the alternate national identities and conceptions of “homeland” that the Mapuche used to gain greater access to cultural, land, and political rights.