Caminos a la ciudad, el monte y el Lote. Producción de lugares entre los Tobas (Qom) del Barrio Nam Qom, Formosa

Abstract

This study analyzes the ways in which the Qom of Lote 68 (Formosa) produce the bush as an important place of their experience as well as a form of the political production of their identity as indigenous people living in the urban periphery. This production of the bush is created in multiple movements between the neighborhood identified as “indigenous” and the city, which is considered as a place of “progress.” I use the concept of spacial production to analyze the way in which the bush is constructed in contrast with, as well as in connection to, these other places. The bush is a significative place since it is conceived as a refuge in contrast with the relationships unfolded in other places (including frictions with state agencies and the tense political relations within the neighborhood), and also because it is a place of relative control and a specific production of knowledge about the space. This study contributes to thinking about the way in which social relations are created and resisted in space, and the ways in which the production of aboriginality is also a production of space linked to specific places.

Keywords

• Production of space and places
• aboriginality
• identities
• Formosa
• Argentina Chaco
• Toba (Qom) people