Les vestiges comme source de légitimation territoriale

Abstract

Drawing from local records of material vestiges of the past, understood here in the broad sense of objects and traces of different presences including those of nonhumans, this paper addresses how indigenous and riverside populations in Brazil and Argentina communicate their relations with the territory to the cultural heritage authorities. The vestiges, which draw attention to specific landscapes, play an active role in legitimating identities and articulating territorial claims. Furthermore, some of them are used by local actors to provide evidence of the presence of nonhuman entities whose interactions with humans establish links with previous generations

Keywords

• archaeological ruins
• territorial claims
• geoglyphs
• landscape heritage
• Amazonian peoples and people of the Gran Chaco