Mapuchefolket - i gränsernas land : En studie av autonomi, identitet, etniska gränser och social mobilisering

The new world order, that Castells denominates network society, generates a conflict between the globalisation and identity. In this sense the questions of identity and ethnic boundaries,in Barth’s meaning, emerge as a central subject to understanding societal changes. Globalisation is causing a weakening of the civil society, the relationship between the nation state and the people is also debilitated. New identities arise from this conflict. The resistance identity and the project identity arise, according to Castells, out of the new social movements. The present modernization, the technological, economical and cultural globalisation, has generated a new type of relationship between the Chilean society and the indigenous peoples. Analysing how these new ethnical relationships operates is the central subject in this study. The aim of this study is to understand the processes that occur within the ethnic boundaries which generate the identity of the respective cultures. From this aim, I analyse the discursive social references that the Mapuche use to preserve the boundaries between them and Chilean society. My analysis is concentrated in the political sphere where different Mapuches’ discourses are pronounced. New discourses have been actualised in Mapuches social movement, because of the new social references that have arisen in the identity of Mapuche. Why do Mapuche endeavour to revitalizing the boundaries with the Chilean society? Is globalisation generating a resistance against the tendencies to leave people without boundaries or to erase the boundaries between different types of people? Many such questions can be formulated in this context. Nevertheless, I propose that a close analysis of the historical development of the Mapuche boundaries, especially in the religious, political and social domains, can help us to better understand the rolls and functions of the boundaries in the social life. It is possible to analyse this in different discursive social references. The discursive analysis that I propose departs from the idea that in each discourse exist very clear social references which are generated at the same time from respective symbolic resources which exist in the group. The reactivation of old resources, the generation and appropriation of new symbolic resources, influences, in one way or another, the social references of the group which at the same time can influence the discourses of the same group. All these processes, around the relationship of social references / symbolic resources / discourse, are considered in this study as basic dynamics in the preservation of the boundaries of the ethnic groups, and are fundamental to the existence of the group also. Maintaining boundaries implies a permanent reflective process in which one chooses meanings for its’ own identity within different references. This reflective process occurs in a stress range that characterizes the boundaries of the group. I call this “boundary deliberation” The so-call process of globalisation in the present society generates new situations of boundary deliberation between different cultures. This reflective process in, and on, the ethnic boundaries occurs today between the Mapuches and Chilean society. Autonomy is one of the most important discursive social references in this reflective process. The results of this study were obtained through analyses of the boundary situations generated in the conflict between the Mapuches and the Chilean / western culture