The National Census of 1895 and the production of Indigenous imaginaries: comparative perspective between Chaco and Tierra del Fuego

Abstract

By late nineteenth century the political-scientific speeches and practices associated with the construction of the Argentine national state contributed to a differential incorporation of the indigenous population. Inthis paper we analyze the marks towards alterity provided by Census enumerators in the National Territories of Chaco and Tierra del Fuego. The ethnic and national classifications, as well as the construction of  llocal diversities provided by these agents, will show us suggestive indicators related to the thesis of extinction and massive incorporation of the indigenous as a homogeneous and undifferentiated group (indios). The idea that such state representations not only settled down successfully in the nineteenth century’s collective imagination, but persist strongly today underlies the historical analysis. Finally we ask about the state role as producer of imaginaries of Otherness, needed to establish national ethnic boundaries.