Indigenous Interference: Mapuche Use of Radio in Times of Acoustic Colonialism

Abstract

Since 1993 to the present, a group of Mapuche activists has aired the bilingual radio show in Santiago, Chile; on the other side of the Andes, another Ma- puche collective, the Equipo de Comunicacion Mapurbe, produced and broadcast a series of brief radio programs between 2003 and 2005 in Bariloche, southern Argentina. In this article, I argue that these radio programs constitute an exercise of Mapuche agency that challenges what I call the acoustic colonialism of corporate and criollo mass media in both countries. This article illustrates how Mapuche activists creatively use radio as a connective medium among Mapuche communities and a space for the public audibility of their own voices, sounds, and modes of speech. I analyze the history, cultural poli- tics, and performative features of these two initiatives, engaging theoretical and critical views on sound media, state cultural policies, and politics of indigenous agency. In the winter of 1993 in Santiago, Chile, a collective of Mapuche activists broad- cast the radio program for the fi rst time. A distinct utterance in the Mapuche language, or Mapudungun, Wixage anai! can be translated as wake up, get up, or rise up. With this provocative interjection, the program began its transmission that year in both Spanish and Mapudungun. As a fully bilin- gual radio program, the fi rst of its kind in Chile, reconnected many Mapuches living in Santiago with their native language and presented ongoing Mapuche cultural and political issues under the guiding motto Wixage kuyuntukukei tain kinantual, that is, Wixage helps us stay united. On the other side of the Andes, in Bariloche, a city in the Rio Negro province of Ar- gentina, a group of young Mapuches created a radio team in 2000. With the name Equipo de Comunicacion Mapurbe (Mapurbe Communication Working Group), this Mapuche team decided to produce a series of brief radio programs, which they called micros in order to highlight the shortened format. The team began to broadcast these microprograms in 2003 as part of their broader Campaign for Ma- puche Self-Affi rmation, the Campana de Autoafi rmacion Mapuche Wefkuteluyin. The Mapudungun phrase in the name of this campaign means we are emerging and marked the beginning of Mapuche political resurgence in the early 2000s in southern Argentina.