Memory, history and identity in the context of territorial conflicts: The case of Pozo del Castaño, Santiago del Estero

Abstract

This article reflects on the results of a field work in the town of Pozo del Castaño, Santiago del Estero, in a context of territorial conflict. It is about problematizing how the relationship between memory, history and identity takes on a certain particularity and significance in the rural territories of the province, and at the same time, how this articulation can acquire an instrumental value when it is thought of as a political resource for the defense of territorial possession. The representations of the indigenous past and its (dis)continuity in the present, the interpellations to the identities from the conflict situation and the need to project itself as a historical collective subject, highlights practices and uses of the territory that dissent with the productivist and western development logic. In this sense, memory as an identity producer allows us to understand the native categories of identifications and the subjectivities built around the past in a rural space crossed by the presence of patronage through the ranch, the manunfactoring and currently by the disputes over the territories.