Mapuche territory and mobilities in the extractivist Norpatagonia: tensions between forced displacements and return projects to the territory (Río Negro, Argentina)

Abstract

This work presents some proposals regarding how different construction projects in the North Patagonian region of Argentina strain types of Mapuche indigenous mobility. The implementation of extractive projects, such as megamining, oil fracking, or those associated with the so-called 'energy transition', has been challenging, among other things, those related to the mobility experiences of Mapuche agency. The advancement of the Argentine nation-state in the late 19th century reconfigured indigenous displacement practices that connected extensive territories, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and traced networks based on mobility. Through violence and the implementation of a genocidal policy against indigenous peoples, the Argentine state executed various devices aimed at dismantling the social life of these groups. Framed within that policy, the forced mobility of the indigenous population operated as a means of de-territorialization. The implementation of extractivism in current times not only activates the memory of state violence but also mapuche interpretative frameworks regarding the territory that contest meanings about the production of space.