The recent historiography of the Mapuche is emphasizing the importance of understanding their own forms of territoriality and geopolitics to challenge national views of their history and present in Argentina and Chile. Historians are using Mapuche terms to address the space of study, such as
Ngulumapu (“land at the west”, today Araucanía) and
Puelmapu (“land at the east”, today Pampa and Patagonia). They acknowledge that these terms also express power-dynamics between different ethnic groups, especially the process of expansion of Mapuche lineages from the
Ngulumapu and the
cordillera to the Pampas between the 18th and 19th centuries. By looking at the Confederacies that emerged as a product of these migrations, in this panel I explore how did their territoriality – in terms of political, economic and spatial construction- shaped Argentina´s major economic and territorial processes, such as the Pampas´ economic expansion towards the Atlantic and the decline of west-oriented (Chile, the Andes and the Pacific) economic developments. This analysis aims to challenge the Atlantic-centered view of Argentina´s main historical narrative.
Regarding Mapuche politics, I explore the Confederacies´ kinship-based politics and diplomatic negotiations with different state units (local, provincial and national governments) and their impact on defining political and territorial domination in the Pampas and Patagonia. Then, I explore Mapuche´s economic developments by focusing on their relationships with the space. I explore their adaptation to diverse environments, their transregional trade networks, their nomadic pastoralist dynamics and their discontinuous and overlapping territorialities. This analysis will help to assess their impact on the major regional economic developments that shaped Argentina´s nation-state formation process. This study also integrates Argentine and Chilean historiographies as well as my archival work on the subject.
