Deslizándose en las fisuras de la utopía: los Toba en las fronteras del Estado Nación argentino

Abstract

Done in the Argentinean Chaco, this thesis analyzed the relationship between space, social relations and political action. For this, we focus on the relationship between toba people and the Argentine nation-state. The space has been addressed in this thesis recognizing its heterogeneous condition, formed from the synchronous existence of multiple societies and different spaces. Unveiling the strength of utopian thinking in the consolidation of the nation state and the foundation of all relationships it has established with the natives, we analyze the process of constitution of the Argentinean Nation Argentina in Chaco and its characteristics universalist utopia. The analysis of the construction of the nation state and the historical development of the toba has been made going beyond the idea of ​​the existence of an a-historical status of indigenous peoples and those studies focusing on the discipline/transgression, natural space as/socially built space and hegemony/resistance oppositions. Focusing on their forms of political action, we argue that the toba reveal the cracks in the nationalist utopia. We hold the view that in its relations with the Nation, Toba 'mariscan' [gather shellfish] in the areas of political action and proceed to the manufacture their collective identities by subjectivizing universalisms. Such universalisms are inherent to citizenship, indigenism, evangelism and socio-political movements called together from the social class, all of these being 'relational political devices' in which toba people put at stake contemporary political action.

Keywords

• toba-qom people
• Chaco
• space
• politics
• history