Historia Crítica (Jan 2025)
¿Una nación en bosquejos? Procesos de identificación aymara en Chile durante el periodo transicional, 1990-1993
Abstract
Objective/context: During the 1990s, the Aymara people actively participated in discussions on the status of indigenous peoples. This experience reinforced identification processes that gained renewed strength with the national democratic opening and the international recognition of indigenous rights. As a result, demands were better articulated and gained visibility in the public space, and thus, an incipient idea of an Aymara nation emerged. The article analyzes the identification processes of the Aymara people in northern Chile from the creation of the Special Commission on Indigenous Peoples (1990) until the enactment of the Indigenous Law (1993), interrogating the ideas and discourses deployed. Methodology: The newspaper La Estrella de Arica (1990-1993) was examined in depth through a qualitative strategy. This material was triangulated with information obtained from congresses and relevant regulations and contrasted with a specialized bibliography, following the approach of the history of political languages and everyday nationalism. Originality: Although there is a vast amount of literature on the Aymara people in Andean countries, recent national identification processes have been little explored in Chile, where interest in other periods and approaches prevails. This article seeks to deepen these debates, proposing historical tools to understand the relationships between political communities better. It is argued that, although it has circulated, the idea of the Aymara nation should be treated with caution due to the multiple nuances revealed by the processes of reethnification and the influence of public policies. Conclusions: In the transition to democracy, there was a broad debate on the forms of Aymara identification. Although the circulation of the idea of nation was neither systematic nor uniform, expressions of simultaneous adherence to the Chilean State and the Aymara people coexisted, indicating a complex and ambivalent relationship between the processes of ethno-national identification in the period.
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