Mapuche demand: tension between identity and difference, citizenship and community, particularism and universalism

Abstract

Mapuche claim forces us to think of an “incardinated subject” holding certain reivindications strictly modern in their claim for recognition of difference, while challenging the notion of universal citizenship and possing a territorially anchored demand and based on an emancipatory rights discourse. Indeed, it refocusse us on the building of a collective identity which  is an effect, on the one hand, of an exclusion and misrecognition and, on the other hand, of a global environment that makes them more visible fragments not tied, as its counterface. Finally, it confonts us to universal demand for the right to a meaningful life. We propose to consider identity from a de-essentialized perspective that emphasizes -firstly- the role of language in structuring social relations and –next- the relevance of the non-narrativized  of the social field.