This book presents a multidisciplinary overview of a little known interethnic conflict in the southernmost part of the Americas: the tensions between the Mapuche indigenous people and the settlers of European descent in the Araucania region, in southern Chile. Politically autonomous during the colonial period, the Mapuche had their land confiscated, their population decimated and the survivors displaced and relocated as marginalized and poor peasants by Chilean white settlers at the end of the nineteenth century, when Araucania was transformed in a multi-ethnic region marked by numerous tensions between the marginalized indigenous population and the dominant Chileans of European descent. This contributed volume presents a collection of papers which delve into some of the intercultural dilemmas posed by these complex interethnic relations. These papers were originally published in Spanish and French and provide a sample of the research activities of the Nucleo de Estudios Interetnicos e Interculturales (NEII) at the Universidad Catolica de Temuco, in the capital of Araucania. The NEII research center brings together scholars from different fields: sociocultural anthropology, sociolinguistics, ethno-literature, intercultural education, intercultural philosophy, ethno-history and translation studies to produce innovative research in intercultural and interethnic relations. The chapters in this volume present a sample of this work, focusing on three main topics: The ambivalence between the inclusion and exclusion of indigenous peoples in processes of nation-building. The challenges posed by the incorporation of intercultural practices in the spheres of language, education and justice. The limitations of a functional notion of interculturality based on eurocentric thought and neoliberal economic rationality. Intercultural Studies from Southern Chile: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches will be of interest to anthropologists, linguists, historians, philosophers, educators and a range of other social scientists interested in intercultural and interethnic studies.

Anthropological histories and historical geographies of colonialism both have examined the material and discursive processes of colonization and have identified the opportunities for different kinds of relationships to emerge between Europeans and the indigenous people they encountered and in different ways colonized. These studies have revealed complex, differentiated, colonializing and colonialized identities, shifting and ambiguous political relations, social pluralities, and mutating and distinctive modes of colonization. This book focuses on the complementary historical, linguistic, and archaeological evidence for indigenous resistance and resilience in the specific form of parlamento political negotiations or attempted treaties between the Spanish Crown and the Araucanians in south-central Chile from the late 1600s to the early 1800s. Armed conflict, the rejection of most Spanish material culture, and the use of the indigenous Mapundungun language at parlamentos were obvious forms of Araucanian resistance. From a bigger picture, the book is based on an interdisciplinary perspective and asserts that historical archeology can provide better interpretations of past societies only if combined with other disciplines experienced by the treatment of existing data for historical periods, such as those provided by the written documents and which can be subjected to an anthropological, ethnohistorical, and linguistic reading by these disciplines. This creates tension because complementarity but also requires a questioning of the methods themselves as an offset look in order to include the other disciplinary perspectives.

Anthropological histories and historical geographies of colonialism both have examined the material and discursive processes of colonization and have identified the opportunities for different kinds of relationships to emerge between Europeans and the indigenous people they encountered and in different ways colonized. These studies have revealed complex, differentiated, colonializing and colonialized identities, shifting and ambiguous political relations, social pluralities, and mutating and distinctive modes of colonization. This book focuses on the complementary historical, linguistic, and archaeological evidence for indigenous resistance and resilience in the specific form of parlamento political negotiations or attempted treaties between the Spanish Crown and the Araucanians in south-central Chile from the late 1600s to the early 1800s. Armed conflict, the rejection of most Spanish material culture, and the use of the indigenous Mapundungun language at parlamentos were obvious forms of Araucanian resistance. From a bigger picture, the book is based on an interdisciplinary perspective and asserts that historical archeology can provide better interpretations of past societies only if combined with other disciplines experienced by the treatment of existing data for historical periods, such as those provided by the written documents and which can be subjected to an anthropological, ethnohistorical, and linguistic reading by these disciplines. This creates tension because complementarity but also requires a questioning of the methods themselves as an offset look in order to include the other disciplinary perspectives.

This book presents a multidisciplinary overview of a little known interethnic conflict in the southernmost part of the Americas: the tensions between the Mapuche indigenous people and the settlers of European descent in the Araucania region, in southern Chile. Politically autonomous during the colonial period, the Mapuche had their land confiscated, their population decimated and the survivors displaced and relocated as marginalized and poor peasants by Chilean white settlers at the end of the nineteenth century, when Araucania was transformed in a multi-ethnic region marked by numerous tensions between the marginalized indigenous population and the dominant Chileans of European descent. This contributed volume presents a collection of papers which delve into some of the intercultural dilemmas posed by these complex interethnic relations. These papers were originally published in Spanish and French and provide a sample of the research activities of the Nucleo de Estudios Interetnicos e Interculturales (NEII) at the Universidad Catolica de Temuco, in the capital of Araucania. The NEII research center brings together scholars from different fields: sociocultural anthropology, sociolinguistics, ethno-literature, intercultural education, intercultural philosophy, ethno-history and translation studies to produce innovative research in intercultural and interethnic relations. The chapters in this volume present a sample of this work, focusing on three main topics: The ambivalence between the inclusion and exclusion of indigenous peoples in processes of nation-building. The challenges posed by the incorporation of intercultural practices in the spheres of language, education and justice. The limitations of a functional notion of interculturality based on eurocentric thought and neoliberal economic rationality. Intercultural Studies from Southern Chile: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches will be of interest to anthropologists, linguists, historians, philosophers, educators and a range of other social scientists interested in intercultural and interethnic studies.