Indigenous people, territory and political action. The organization of Mapuche People in Neuquen (Argentina)

In Argentina, the Mapuche People intend to be recognized as an ancestral inhabitant of land affected by extractivist practices, and have become, since the nineties, an important political actor. This paper proposes a series of key elements to analyze the process in which the Mapuche People became a collective political actor, mainly between the seventies and the present. The analysis focuses on the southern half of Neuquen province, region that contains the case studies on which these views are based on. This is a region full of territorial disputes, specially linked to its touristic potential. After the military campaign orchestrated by a State still in consolidation, in the 19th century, in order to control land inhabited by indigenous people, the vindication process has gone from individual actions -often unaccompanied by identity-based claims- to collective actions linked to a view of their ethnic identity as a political asset.