Abstract
Abstract. The incorporation of indigenous territories into the Argentine Republic must be considered as a complex process of colonization which encompassed space, the word and the body. It enabled the dominant settler society to establish socioeconomic and sociocultural hegemony. The example of the Toba community in Clorinda elucidates the extent to which hegemonic worldviews have infiltrated their self-perception and produced the barrio (urban district) and the campo (rural area), as two places infiltrated with symbolisms and ideology. Through a postcolonial perspective, this article aims to examine the way the community deals with this "modernization", as the Toba themselves call the process. It is pointed out that, by appropriating the hegemony's logic, the Toba actively create spaces of resistance in order to maintain or regain self-determination. Discussing indigenous alternative concepts of modernity, this article advocates a greater consideration of those diverse social realities in the scope of Western development geography.
Highlights
The Toba are one of three indigenous ethnic groups still living in the province of Formosa, northeast Argentina
The incorporation of indigenous territories into the Argentine Republic must be considered as a complex process of colonization which encompassed space, the word and the body
The example of the Toba community in Clorinda elucidates the extent to which hegemonic worldviews have infiltrated their self-perception and produced the barrio and the campo, as two places infiltrated with symbolisms and ideology
Summary
The Toba are one of three indigenous ethnic groups still living in the province of Formosa, northeast Argentina. Based on data collected during fieldwork between 2010 and 2011, this article has two central concerns It will elucidate the complex process of the infiltration of hegemonic worldviews into the Toba’s self-perception and everyday understanding. This transformation – or “modernization”, as the Toba themselves call it – has created a conflictive and seemingly contradictive perception of the past and the present which is reflected by the production of the community’s residential quarter in Clorinda (the barrio) and the countryside (the campo) with its monte (the thick forest where the Toba practiced the marisca, i.e., the hunting, fishing and gathering) as two places ascribed with meaning. By addressing indigenous alternative concepts of modernity, which might seem contradictive to Western perspectives, and the resulting strategies of resistance, it further advocates a greater consideration of such diverse social realities in the scope of Western development geography
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