TENSIONS AND CONVERGENCES: CONTEMPORARY MAPUCHE WOMEN’S NARRATIVE AND INDIGENOUS POLITICAL THOUGHT

Abstract

This article explores the links between contemporary indigenous political thought and the narrative production of Mapuche women, particularly the works of Graciela Huinao, Mariela Fuentealba Millaguir, Moira Millán, Daniela Catrileo and Kati Lincopil. Based on the anticolonial and decolonizing thoughts as unifying bases of indigenous political thought (Antileo), I analyze the ways in which colonial continuity is manifested in narrative works, and the strategies of decolonization and resistance that are constructed to confront it. These approaches are explained by the historical evolution of the Mapuche people, which, although marked by violence, also shows possibilities of political agency. For this reason, in the first place, a brief historical contextualization of the territorial and cultural problems that the Mapuche people have had to face and that are also expressed in literary production is presented. Secondly, the main categories or theses of contemporary indigenous thought that seem to me relevant to link with the narrative production in question are discussed.