Double Bind: Alejandro Lipschütz and the Failure of Transnational Indigenismo in Chile

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the life and career of Alejandro Lipschütz, Chile's most accomplished indigenista, to investigate his influence on the scientific and political discourse about the role of indigenous peoples in modern American states, known as indigenismo. Trained as an experimental biologist, Lipschütz criticized prevailing views of race in the Americas, arguing for a social interpretation and analysis of racial categories that defined indigeneity. Lipschütz then promoted the creation of an indigenous institute within the Chilean state and advocated on behalf of the Mapuche people. Because indigenous leaders themselves developed a strong political movement in the mid twentieth century, transnational indigenismo failed to produce meaningful or lasting progress in Chile. That failure convinced Lipschütz that indigenous peoples should preserve and strengthen traditional communities and seek political autonomy. This analysis joins a growing body of scholarship that challenges conventional views of indigenismo, which characterize it as a repressive ideology used by paternalistic states. This study of Alejandro Lipschütz prefigures the shift toward acknowledging the greater indigenous agency that accompanied identity-based social movements emerging in the 1980s.