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Nationalism and Ethnic Politics

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The Demands of the True Mapuche: Ethnic Political Mobilization in the Mapuche Movement
Carolijn Terwindt
a a

Columbia University, Published online: 19 May 2009.

To cite this article: Carolijn Terwindt (2009): The Demands of the True Mapuche: Ethnic Political Mobilization in the Mapuche Movement, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 15:2, 237-257 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537110902921321

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Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 15:237257, 2009 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1353-7113 print / 1557-2986 online DOI: 10.1080/13537110902921321

The Demands of the True Mapuche: Ethnic Political Mobilization in the Mapuche Movement
CAROLIJN TERWINDT
Columbia University

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To understand the role of ethnicity in ethnic political mobilization when there are no clear-cut ethnic groups, it is valuable to analyze the construction and interaction of different modalities of ethnicity. In the process of ethnic political mobilization in the Mapuche conict, one can observe the importance of ethnic images as activists reject the dominant negative image of the Mapuche and advocate a more positive image of the true Mapuche. This prototype of the true Mapuche, however, does not necessarily correspond to the reality in which many Mapuches live. This article analyzes the strategies of Mapuche activists to deal with this gap between the two ethnic modalities.

INTRODUCTION
On Thursday 3 Jan. 2008, the bullet of a Chilean policeman killed 23-yearold Mat as Catrileo Quezada. At six oclock in the morning, Mat as and about 30 other people entered the land of a private landowner with the intention to recuperate the land that they claim historically belongs to the Mapuches. In the ensuing confrontation, Mat as was fatally shot.1 In an interview, the mother of Mat as states that his father has Mapuche origins as his ancestors were born in the south of Chile, but, like so many Mapuches, they were driven from their land and migrated to Santiago in search for work. During his high school years, Mat as became interested in his Mapuche roots and started to learn the Mapuche language at school. He developed a desire to create awareness about the Mapuche struggle. Later, he decided to go to the south of Chile where he joined the radical Mapuche organization

Address correspondence to Carolijn Terwindt, Columbia University, 435 West 116th St., New York, NY 10027-7297. E-mail: cterwindt@yahoo.com 237

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Coordinadora Arauco Malleco and participated in the struggle to recover lands and strive for autonomy.2 During my eldwork in 2002 and 2003 in the south of Chile I did not meet Mat as Catrileo. He probably was not yet there. But I have spoken with many young activists who like Mat as have been actively involved in the Mapuche cause; some of them recently told me that they knew Mat as. At the start of my eldwork in November 2002, the 18-year-old Alex Lemun Saavedra was killed in a similar confrontation with Chilean police in the struggle about land. Mat as Catrileo is the second young Mapuche activist who has paid with his life for his activism. Given his mixed background, it is clear that his mobilization as a Mapuche activist cannot be explained by referring to an unambiguous Mapuche identity. Analyzing interviews with Mapuche activists and their expressions in numerous documents, I have examined the process and practices of ethnic political mobilization to ask what work ethnic labels are doing. What, for example, does the ethnic label Mapuche mean for someone from a mixed background who mobilizes as Mapuche? I argue that ethnic political mobilization can be analyzed usefully as a complex interplay between ethnic categories and ethnic images. As I lived among Mapuche activists and listened to their conversations and answers in interviews there always seemed to be a pervasive notion of the true Mapuche.3 Most of the activists I met, however, did not resemble this true Mapuche. To make sense of the use of ethnic labels (such as I am Mapuche and we claim this land as Mapuches) in ethnic political mobilization in the face of many contradictions and never clear-cut ethnic groups, this study describes the emergence of the true Mapuche, its discrepancies with reality, and the strategies pursued by Mapuche activists to bridge this gap in the process of ethnic political mobilization in the so-called Mapuche conict. An activist can be dened as a person who is actively and intensely participating in a social movement over a period of time.4 The social movement5 in this case is what Mapuche activists refer to as the Mapuche movement.6 Because of the diversity of organizations and issues involved, Saavedra prefers to talk about multiple Mapuche movements.7 The Mapuches were never conquered by the Spaniards. After the independence struggle of Chile against the Spanish Crown, the territory below the B o B o River stayed in the hands of the Mapuches.8 In 1866, the Chilean state considered this to be unacceptable and, after 15 years of ghting, conquered the Mapuches in 1881.9 Mapuches were brought to reservations and Mapuche territory was reduced from 31 million to 500,000 hectares.10 The other lands were sold to immigrants from Europe. Since the placement of Mapuche communities in reservations there has been resistance. For example, in the beginning of the 20th century, the Federaci on Araucana organized against assimilation, demanded the return of stolen land back and claimed an independent republic.11 During the regime of Salvador Allende

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in 197073, land reforms were enacted; these, however, were undone after the coup by Pinochet.12 His regime enabled many forestry companies to buy land in the area and to develop plantations of eucalyptus and pine trees. In 1989, Pinochet lost a referendum and a democratic government was installed. Negotiations with the indigenous people of Chile led to a special Indigenous Law, which deals with, among other concerns, the issue of land. A government agency was founded to manage a fund specically designed to buy lands that indigenous communities claim and to return the land to them. The fund, however, is not sufcient to respond to the number of requests, and the agency only can buy lands when the owner is willing to sell voluntarily.13 The expansion of forestry plantations is accompanied by megaprojects, such as the building of several hydroelectric dams and the construction of a coastal highway. These projects all have an impact on Mapuche communities and their territory, and several groups and organizations have emerged to defend their interests.14 The Mapuche conict refers to the collection of struggles between these Mapuche communities and organizations and their specic adversaries.15 Mapuche activists demand the return of ancestral lands from forestry companies and private landowners and they struggle against the megaprojects affecting Mapuche territory. Some Mapuche organizations are in favor of autonomy; however, this claim is not shared by everyone.16 In addition to civil lawsuits, political roundtables, and negotiations, the struggle takes place through marches, demonstrations, occupations of buildings, hunger strikes, land takeovers, road blockades, and incidental arsons of plantations or sabotage of machinery.17 According to the most recent population census taken in 2002, 4.6 percent of the population declared to belong to one of the indigenous populations. Of these, 87.3 percentor 604,349self-identied as Mapuches (the total Chilean population at the time consisted of 15,116,435 inhabitants).18 In the census of 1992, however, 928,060 people identied as Mapuche.19 A presentation by the Institute of Statistics of Chile explains the decline as a consequence of a different way of asking the question.20 Increasing awareness of and identication with the Mapuche identity is a central element in the process that can be called ethnic mobilization. We want to reclaim the lands as Mapuches, asserted Carlos, one of my informants, while he chided the fact that many Mapuches were forgetting their traditions. Many activists are involved in practices to make Mapuches aware of their identity and the conict issues and to mobilize them to take action. These practices vary, for example, from history lessons in Mapuche student houses, to a theatre traveling throughout Mapuche communities, to music groups singing about national liberation. The emphasis on the Mapuche identity does not mean that ethnicity or ethnic differences are the (single) explanatory factor for this mobilization. Discussing so-called ethnic conicts, Brubaker and Laitin complain that too

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often a label is turned into a cause.21 In calling conicts ethnic conicts or ethnic violence, they argue that scholars have to ask what work the label ethnic is doing. The relevant questions are how, when, and why do ethnic differences lead to mobilization.22 Given the breadth of these questions, this study is limited to a narrower project. Various political, social, and economical developments are obviously important to understanding the specic timing of mobilization efforts, specic targets that are chosen or avoided, and specic alliances that are forged or broken. Social movement scholars often refer to these contextual dimensions as the political opportunity structure.23 Instead of examining the inuence of these external circumstances, this study analyzes how activists understand and use the available ethnic labels of Mapuche and Chilean in their mobilization efforts. This article analyzes a conict in which ethnic labels cannot be overlooked. The conict is not only generally referred to as the Mapuche conict; Mapuche activists also emphasize that their Mapuche identity is an important or even central aspect of their struggle. Mapuches are not poor Chileans is a common saying among activists (thus countering the position taken by various landowners that the only problem is poverty). Jos e, an informant from a rural Mapuche community, tells me: Consciousness is the basis; consciousness of our culture and our values. Otherwise, we would be recuperating land from the forestry companies as Chileans, and that is not the idea.24 Despite this ethnicity talk, however, the Mapuche conict is certainly not a conict between instantly recognizable and straightforward ethnic groups. There is no unity among Mapuche activists and Mapuche organizations; mestizos and Chileans participate in the Mapuche struggle as well; a large percentage of the Mapuches live in Santiago and do not express their identity or assume an active role in the conict; and activists do not target Chileans in their claims. Of course, in struggles in many parts of the world, there are no clear-cut groups and organizations do not coincide completely with the grass roots. This makes understanding the role that ethnic identity plays and the potential signicance of these discrepancies for mobilization efforts even more important. In order to move the study of ethnic conict beyond the study of conict between ethnic groups, Brubaker asserts that bounded and solidary groups are [only] one modality of ethnicity.25 As described above, it is clear that the Mapuche conict lacks bounded and solid groups. By emphasizing different modalities, Brubaker shifts the analytical focus from xed entities to the process behind these entities: from identity to identications and from groups to group-making projects.26 Ethnic political mobilization in the Mapuche movement(s) is analyzed here as a special case of groupmaking that employs two different modalities of ethnic identity in order to understand the complex role that ethnic identity plays in group-making processes.

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Here, ethnic category is dened as a label for a collective of people considered to be connected by blood-ties and regarded as ethnic and ethnic image is a normative prototype of an ethnic category in relation to another ethnic category. Through the concepts of category and image one can observe that the identication with an ethnicity is not just an empty formal label or simple division in different groups, but identications bring with them certain content as represented in the ethnic image. Another way to say this is that ethnic identication is not just a matter of boundaries but also of content. This may seem a reversal of Barths insight eloquently put by Baumann: The key point was to wrench social science away from its tribalist preoccupation with the cultural stuff that ethnic groups may share and to focus instead on the boundaries that separated ethnic groups. The cultural stuff very often showed as much overlap with neighboring groups as it showed variety with the boundaries. What made ethnic identity ethnic, therefore, was to be sought in the social processes of maintaining boundaries that the people themselves recognized as ethnic.27 Even though or precisely because the cultural stuff may not empirically correlate to the ethnic boundaries, it is important to analyze the role images of this cultural stuff play in processes of identication, categorization, and group-making. In their article On Being a Recognizable Indian among Indians, Wieder and Pratt explore how the real Indian in the United States poses and answers the question of who is a real Indian and how he or she guarantees that others will arrive at the correct answer about him or her.28 In their analysis, they distinguish between the binary categories the U.S. government employed in determining who was Indian and the different mode of determining who was a real Indian among Indians. The categories government agencies employed are nite and mutually exclusive; they are considered to be a property of a person independent of the persons performances or the recognition of others. In contrast, Wieder and Pratt introduce a different kind of Indianness: the way in which Indians have to go about making themselves recognizable as Indians among Indians. Their distinction corresponds to the notion of different modalities of ethnicity, as becomes clear in the following citation from their analysis: We should also note that when our informant said that the brash girl was not an Indian, she was not speaking to issues of bloodline or tribal rolls. Instead, she was speaking exclusively about the girls status as a real Indian, that is, one who is knowledgeable of and respectful of Indian ways and embodies them in their own action.29 Wieder and Pratt list a variety of practices and rules that Indians have to adhere to in order to be recognized as Indians. They emphasize that one can cease to be a real Indian if one does not continue to practice and do as a real Indian. The analysis in this article similarly refers to the binary property conception of ethnicity as the category whereas the image refers to the model or normative standard that is being used in interactions among activists to determine whether or not someone is a true Mapuche.

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The data for this article were collected over a six-month period of participant observation in the south of Chile in 20022003, including formal and informal interviews as well as attendance at cultural and political meetings. Informants were found mainly through the snowball method while attention was paid to their characteristics focusing on theoretical sampling. I met with a variety of leaders and community members of the Mapuche movement, urban and rural, young and old, university educated and peasant. I spent a signicant amount of time in several rural Mapuche communities who actively struggle for the recuperation of their lands, and I visited less active communities. Daily written eld notes assisted the data collection as well as the process of analysis and reection. I systematically coded and organized the data while still in the eld. Unfolding hypotheses were checked and rechecked in subsequent interviews and observations. In additional analysis, a wide variety of written material was used, including pamphlets and public declarations from Mapuche activists and landowners, publications by Mapuche organizations, minutes from meetings between government and Mapuche activists, policy papers from the government and the forestry council, threat assessments, economic loss calculations, Web site material, newspaper archives, and trial transcripts. A short return visit in 2005 enabled me to check my analysis with several of my informants. The data analyzed for this article focus on a specic period in time among a limited number of Mapuche activists in the process of ethnic political mobilization. By now, things have moved on: the contestation of ethnic images has led to their transformation, and interactions between various groups of activists have led to new alliances and different meanings attached to the ethnic labels this study scrutinizes. Even though my data collection efforts aimed to cover the various parts of the Mapuche movement(s), given its internal differences, I do not claim that the analysis presented here applies unequivocally to all Mapuche activists. The relevance of this analysis does not depend therefore on the specic images it describes or even on the prevalence of the specic images across all Mapuche activists. The signicance lies in the analysis of the gap between ethnic image and ethnic categorization and its impact on the efforts of ethnic mobilization in which the observed activists were involved. The article is organized as follows. The next part describes how the ethnic category Mapuche is constituted and introduces the ethnic image of the true Mapuche as well as the concept of a gap between these different ethnic modalities. The subsequent part discusses how activists attempt to bridge the gap between the ethnic category and the ethnic image through practices of consciousness raising. This part further describes how Mapuche activists claim their standing by referring to their resemblance to the true Mapuche. The succeeding part deals with intraethnic discrimination. Exclusion of ethnic-category Mapuches that do not conform to the ethnic image of the true Mapuche is another strategy to bridge the gap. This

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discrimination recently has led to efforts to replace the image of the true Mapuche with a new ethnic image that is more inclusive and in correspondence with the lifestyles of many ethnic-category Mapuches. This article ends with a brief comparison to similar ndings in other cases of ethnic political mobilization and an indication of the implications of the analysis for further research.

HOW DID THE ETHNIC IMAGE OF THE TRUE MAPUCHE EMERGE?

Scholars have coined the term category for the most basic distinction between groups.30 Psychological experiments have shown that only a minimal categorization is enough for people to act upon these categories through ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination. Differences between individual members within the category can be far greater than the differences between two random members from each group. Categorization means that people recognize themselves as belonging to that category and are recognized by others as belonging to that category.31 The process of categorization is by its nature a collective enterprise, and some categorizers (such as big media) have more power than others. Given its relational character, categorization is also dependent on the specic community within which one moves. The categories relevant for this analysis are Mapuche and Chilean.32 Of course, some people attempt to resist these categories. In Temuco, I overheard a conversation in which a woman insisted that she was from this region when someone inquired about her background. After she repeated I am from this region a few times, her conversation partner pushed her to respond using the binary categorization Mapuche/Chilean. It was clear from his continued probing that her answer did not satisfy him. Every ethnic category comes with certain stereotypes or a category prototype describing its most prevalent characteristics:33 every category is associated with certain stereotypes about behavior and other traits that are seen to be naturally related to the category. The stereotype of Mapuches is that they are lazy and aggressive, they cannot stay away from alcohol, and they are warriors instead of agriculturalists. These stereotypes are widespread, and their existence is recognized by Chileans and Mapuches alike. Together, these stereotypes constitute an ethnic image.34 Ethnic images are imagined collectively and constructed and reproduced in everyday life. They describe the position of members of one ethnic category as opposed to another ethnic category. Ethnic images only make sense in opposition to other ethnic images and as descriptions of people in their relations with others: ethnic images are about relations between groups. The ethnic image is a different modality of ethnicity than the ethnic categorization. Whereas ethnic categorization constitutes a binary decision of inclusion and exclusion presumably
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based on descent, the ethnic image is a guide to conduct and a framework to give meaning to the world, actions, events, and structures. It is a story that people tell through myths, rituals, symbols, and conduct.35 Experiments have shown that only a minimal categorization between groups is enough to create ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination.36 Indeed, discrimination against Mapuches has been frequent, and Mapuche activists often relate stories of discrimination. A young Mapuche activist told me that he had changed schools because of discrimination.37 Ethnic discrimination though is more than nagging and prejudices. It involves structural inequality. Several statistic studies indicate this inequality. A 1998 report from the Chilean research institute Libertad y Desarrollo states that the percentage of the population living in poverty in the regions where the Mapuches had their original territory, and where at the moment (apart from Santiago) the majority of the Mapuches live (regions VIII, IX, and X) is respectively 33.9 percent, 36.5 percent, and 32.2 percent, whereas countrywide 23.2 percent of Chileans live in poverty.38 Analphabetism among the national rural indigenous population is 19 percent. The national mean is 4.4 percent, whereas the national rural mean is 12.2 percent.39 A 2003 paper from the same institute reports similar ndings of ethnic inequality.40 The dominant ethnic image of the Mapuche transforms that ethnic category into a low-status category opposed to the high-status category of the Chilean.41 Belonging to a category that has a low status will lead people to avoid that status. Tajfel and Turner describe several strategies of status avoidance that people employ. One strategy is what Tajfel and Turner called illegitimate assimilation. This involves concealing ones background or origin through the use of language as well as other forms of concealment (such as name changing and the passing of light-skinned blacks). This is exactly what many Mapuches did in the past and many still do today. They forget their native language and teach their children only Spanish, change their last names to Chilean last names, never state I am Mapuche and reject the traditional religion. They try to assimilate and disappear into Chilean society. They try to overstep boundaries by changing the cues that indicated boundaries. They strategically change their use of elements that are made ethnically relevant in everyday Chilean society. These ethnic-category Mapuches have internalized the dominant normative ethnic image to describe the relation between the Mapuche category and the Chilean category.42 In correspondence with ndings in social identity research, many Mapuche activists told me that Mapuches who negate their descent and climb the social economic ladder often discriminate against other Mapuches more emphatically than Chileans. These people are ashamed of their Mapuche background.43 The ethnic image is a combination of a presumed description of a reality, a prescription, and a believed prediction of reality. Mapuches who have internalized the dominant ethnic image believe the negative stereotypes of Mapuches and think that for those who

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employ Mapuche as an ethnic category there is no socioeconomic mobility; they assert that the Mapuche culture is backward and the language is not worth learning. Some ethnic-category Mapuches thus adopt the strategy of illegitimate assimilation, which is an individual strategy to achieve a personal, not a group, solution to achieve a high-status categorization. Tajfel and Turner explain that because this strategy implies disidentication it will loosen the cohesiveness of the subordinate group.44 They predicted that this subsequently leads to the emergence of obstacles to mobilizing group members for collective action over their common interests. One can observe these obstacles in the mobilization efforts of Mapuche activists. Some Mapuches have adopted another strategy described by Tajfel and Turner as social creativity. These ethnic-category Mapuches have decided to be proud of their ethnicity and defend it. They posit another ethnic image that is an inversion of the dominant ethnic image. These Mapuches emphasize their Mapuche background rather than negating it. Multiple factors can be relevant in adopting this different strategy. It is, for example, obvious that mobilization on the basis of an indigenous identity can provide indigenous leaders with certain resources, such as the Indigenous Act of 1993, or the recently ratied international UN treaty 169 on the rights for Indigenous People (ratied by the Chilean state on 15 Sept. 2008). Although these legal instruments recently may have been an incentive for ethnic mobilization, there always have been Mapuches who mobilized on the basis of their Mapuche identity. As an indication of the multiple factors that can inuence the chosen strategy, it is also worthwhile to note that often even within families, siblings have chosen the different paths of illegitimate assimilation and social creativity. Tajfel and Turner emphasize that the adoption of individual strategies is closely related to the belief system concerning social mobility. If people do not believe that it is possible to cross boundaries (for example through illegitimate assimilation), they will adopt other strategies. In narratives about their own process of mobilization, activists often refer to experiences of discrimination. They may have felt discriminated against, or they may have perceived discriminatory practices against fellow Mapuches with whom they identied (directly through the victimization of their parents, or indirectly by reading about poverty in Mapuche communities). Many Mapuche activists currently do not believe that it is possible to cross boundaries. Young Mapuche activists complained to me that even though their parents tried to assimilate, they still experience discrimination. They feel that the results of individual strategies have been very meager. They feel that discrimination persists despite changed names and adoption of the Spanish language and that Mapuches have not been able to acquire better jobs despite attempts to assimilate. The belief that discrimination and exclusion persist has been one factor that led Mapuche activists to construct the image of the true Mapuche.

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As these activists reverse the dominant ethnic image, the true Mapuche image emerges. This image of the true Mapuche is thus created in the interaction between the imposition of the negative dominant ethnic image and the emerging rejection of this image. In this emerging image true Mapuches live close to nature. They believe in spirits of the water, spirits of the land, and in the harmony of the forces of nature. In the philosophy of the true Mapuche, human beings are not on earth to subject nature to prot and exploitation. On the contrary, the image of the true Mapuche presents a Mapuche who knows nature, uses her medicinal plants and lives with her in harmony. The image of the true Mapuche relates that Mapuches have a unique culture, authentic musical instruments, and a perspective on music, sounds, and rhythm that differs from Western house, classical music, or jazz. They have their own clothing and their own language, which is based on concepts instead of words; the traditional Mapuche language, Mapuzugun, has no Latin origins. The Mapuches always have had an oral tradition, and they tell each other legends. The Mapuches live on the land; a true Mapuche could never live in the city; there he or she would lose the identity, because Mapuche means man of the earth. Mapuches know that life is not about money, but about family, happiness, and harmony. They live with their family on the soil of their ancestors. They do not forget their roots, like Western people. Children receive education and schooling while living with their families, listening to grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers. The true Mapuche respects the elderly. Women occupy a unique position in family life. The image of the true Mapuche conrms that the Mapuches are rich; their culture gives them an inner wealth. Nature provides them with everything they will ever need: a roof to sleep under, food to eat. And Mapuches are free; no one has ever conquered them, and they follow no one who tells them how to live. An honorable life without poverty is the life of a true Mapuche. This image of the true Mapuche is in the hearts and dreams of the struggling Mapuche activists. Ironically, the content of the image that they portray about the true Mapuche is highly essentialist. As Baumann succinctly states: all having of culture is a making of culture, yet all making of culture will be portrayed as an act of reconrming an already existing potential.45 Ethnic political mobilization in this analysis means that Mapuche activists have taken it upon themselves to change the dominant ethnic image that subordinates ethnic-category Mapuches to Chileans. They try to persuade other ethnic-category Mapuches to adopt the positive image. The image of the true Mapuche takes elements of the dominant ethnic image and reverses the value. Tajfel and Turner describe this strategy as changing the values assigned to the attributes of the group, so that comparisons that were previously negative are now perceived as positive. The classic example is black is beautiful. The salient dimensionskin colorremains the same, but the prevailing value system concerning it is rejected and reversed.46 In

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contrast with individual assimilation strategies, this is a group strategy. One challenge for this strategy of straight inversion is that the image of the true Mapuche does not correspond to the reality in which many if not most of the ethnic-category Mapuches live. After years of individual strategies of assimilation, migration to the cities, and increasing Chilean inuence through education and mass media, there is a discrepancy between the true Mapuche image and the people recognized as ethnic-category Mapuche. Activists are well aware of this reality. They, for example, complained to me that a nguillatun (religious ceremony) at times is viewed more as a party than a religious ceremony. And during some nguillatuns alcohol is being usedsomething strictly forbidden in earlier times. Many Mapuches have migrated to the cities.47 Many Mapuches do not know how to speak Mapuzugun and no longer wear traditional clothes.48 Many ethnic-category Mapuches are evangelized and do not practice the traditional ceremonies.49 These empirical observations are testimony to the different trajectories Mapuches have followed in their interactions with Chilean society. Mapuche activists who want ethnic-category Mapuches to be like the image of the true Mapuche are confronted with changes that have occurred during the time of assimilation in Chilean society. It is a fact that there are Mapuches living in cities. Most Mapuches also want to make use of electricity. In what follows, we will see how these activists deal with this gap between image and category.

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN CATEGORY AND IMAGE

Mapuche activists are involved in claim making concerning ancestral lands, forestry plantations, corporate globalization, constitutional recognition, and political autonomy. Activists relate these claims to the Mapuche identity. The characteristics portrayed in the ethnic image of the true Mapuche strengthen and justify these claims, showing for example the natural and necessary relation of the Mapuche to the land and providing an example of an attractive lifestyle as an alternative to neoliberalism. The discrepancy between the ethnic image and the reality in which many ethnic-category Mapuches live therefore hinders strong claim making. The gap between the category and the image is thus a major focus of Mapuche activists in the process of ethnic mobilization. One strategy to bridge the gap between the reality of the ethnic category and the ideal of the ethnic image is to make the lifestyle or cultural practices of ethnic-category Mapuches similar to the true Mapuche image. Using the image of the true Mapuche, activists divide ethnic-category Mapuches into those who do highly resemble the image and those who do not. The true Mapuche lives in the countryside, speaks the native language, knows the religious and cultural traditions and lives in harmony with

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nature. In conversations, I noticed admiration and awe for Mapuches who possess these prototypical characteristics; and this resulted in the creation of heroes who Jabri denes as exactly those who are seen to fulll their innermost identity.50 An example lies in respect for people who are uent in Mapuzugun, the native Mapuche language. We want to show that we are not dead, proclaimed a girl at a cultural gathering in Temuco.51 This assertionWe are not dead. We are alive.is a countering of the prevalent notion in Chile that the countrys indigenous people no longer exist. One activist who grew up in an area with few Mapuches told me that he used to think he was like the last Mohican. He realized he was not alone only while attending a university, where he met other Mapuches. Activists complain that ethnic-category Mapuches who live in the city are dying, in the metaphorical sense. Ethnic identity is not very important, let alone dominant, for many ethnic-category Mapuches who activists identify as muertos. Muertos are Mapuches who have lost their doing of the Mapuche identity, as Wieder and Pratt put it in their analysis of the real Indian. Protagonists of the switch to the group strategy of social creativity have to convince other ethnic-category Mapuches to participate in the creative strategy instead of pursuing the individual strategy of assimilation. In their mobilization efforts, these activists thus try to make people choose and to practice the new high-status image of the true Mapuche instead of the old low-status image of the lazy and alcoholic Mapuche.52 Activists themselves also face the demands of the true Mapuche image. A characteristic of a social movement is that it claims to represent a wider group. Protagonist organizations, individuals, and communities of the Mapuche movement claim to represent a wider ethnic group: the Mapuches. Tilly and Tarrow call this a claim of standing.53 Activists have to gain standing as valid representatives of the Mapuches. In many instances, to acquire this standing, it is essential for activists to live up to the demands of the true Mapuche. In a seminar about intercultural conicts attended by both Chileans and Mapuches, a girl draped in the traditional Mapuche clothes stood up and became angry at other Mapuches present: How can we ask for more respect if we do not even respect ourselves!? You are sitting here, but who here are the Mapuches? Where are your clothes? How can we recognize each other? You have to value your culture and express it, and that is the way in which we will gain strength. I often observed activists struggling to dene their lifestyle in terms of the true Mapuche ideal. A woman, whose grandparents had changed their last name to a Spanish name, emphasized that, notwithstanding this fact, she was entirely Mapuche. A student, who lives ve days a week in the city of Temuco calls this a practical arrangement for the university, but he lives in his rural community. A politician and Mapuche activist who almost always is in Temuco and travels a lot for his political activities emphasizes that he lives half in the city and half in the rural area in his community. He claims that he lives in the city only for

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his work. He and the young student refuse to see themselves as urban Mapuches. Perhaps they have in mind the statement of a erce rural Mapuche activist who told me, In the city you are no Mapuche, there you are only Che.54 Demands to t the image of the true Mapuche come not only from fellow activists. Discrepancies between the image and reality also are used against Mapuche activists by landowners and prosecutors. For example, several landowners argued that although Mapuche activists demand land they no longer live on it as did their ancestors. Instead, as the manager of a forestry company pointed out, in a survey the company conducted, Mapuche mothers did not say that they wanted to live like their ancestors; they wanted jobs for their husbands and education for their children. Similarly, during a trial, the prosecutor claimed that the defendants (well-known Mapuche activists) were not real Mapuches because they did not have calluses on their hands due to hard work on the land. The demands of the true Mapuche are thus a coproduction between pressure from fellow activists and their adversaries. The result is that one can observe that activists constantly communicate their correspondences to the true Mapuche. At parties and in social conversations, activists address each other as pe ni and lamngen (brother and sister). As a thank you, they say, Chaltu! For some Mapuche activists, these may be the only words in Mapuzugun that they know, but they use them eagerly. Goffman calls this the overcommunication of ethnic identity.55 Tajfel states that salience of group membership increases ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination as he observes that these phenomena were more marked in the mixed environment of urban Jakarta than in the provinces.56 Similarly, I found the emphasis on the image of the true Mapuche to be stronger in the city than in rural Mapuche communities.

HOW DOES THE GAP LEAD TO INTRAETHNIC DISCRIMINATION?

The ethnic image of the true Mapuche, like the negative image it replaces, is based on high-status and low-status categories. This creates ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination. Many activists claim that their struggle belongs to the Mapuches, thus excluding people who are not ethnic-category Mapuches, as is emphasized in the following citation from a pamphlet of a Mapuche organization: with the goal to make clear to the manipulating left that they do not form part of this process that the Mapuches have started and that belongs to the Mapuches, that they can support, but they are not going to lead us in a struggle that is not theirs.57 Also, activists who do resemble the image of the true Mapuche (such as knowing the language Mapuzugun) can be regarded with suspicion if other activists do not recognize them as ethnic-category Mapuches. She is fake; she is not even Mapuche, Juan, an informant, grumbled, while explaining his resentment

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towards a woman who has spent several years promoting the Mapuche cause by teaching Mapuzugun and Mapuche traditions. According to him, she was not Mapuche (ethnic category); it bothered him that she had changed her name and pretended to be Mapuche by acting according to the image of the true Mapuche. Non-Mapuches are not the only ones excluded from the struggle. The discrepancy between the ethnic category and the ethnic image also leads to discrimination within the ethnic category. A new low-status category has emerged: the Chileanized Mapuche, or ahuincado.58 Whereas an ahuincado may not be muerto because he/she may actively identify as a Mapuche and may have adopted the true Mapuche image, he/she still may not resemble this image. Ahuincados who do not live up to the ideal image of the true Mapuche must struggle to be accepted as Mapuche by other Mapuche activists. A girl from Santiago commented during the cultural assembly in Temuco that she had to face cynical questions, such as, and where do you hold your religious ceremonies? In the park certainly. . . . 59 These discriminatory practices reinforce the boundaries between low-status Chileanized Mapuches and high-status true Mapuches. Continuous discrimination leads to the perception that the high-status category is difcult to access; it is difcult to pass boundaries. If adjusting ones lifestyle is not feasible or desirable, then the ethnic image has to change. Being rejected by two sides leads some activists to question the source of their identity. A girl participating in a discussion among Mapuche youth captured the feeling: Am I Mapuche because others see me that way? Or am I Mapuche because I feel myself Mapuche? When individual strategies do not work, or the high-status category is perceived as difcult or impossible to access, these activists turn to a group strategy. They work to create a new image: the 21st century Mapuche. Some of the activists now try to push back against the rigid image of the true Mapuche that they cannot fulll. They try to nd for themselves a way in which they can be fully accepted and worthy Mapuches, while living in the city, not speaking Mapuzugun, and having Chilean friends, or a Chilean mother. In this quest, they contest the reied image of the true Mapuche. Once again, Mapuche activists take up the strategy of social creativity. We see how navigating between two coercive imageson the one hand the Mapuche who is discriminated because of stereotyping of Mapuches as being lazy, drunk, and aggressive and on the other hand the Mapuche who lives in the countryside while speaking the original language and practicing traditional religionleads to the quest for a new more exible ethnic image that does justice to experienced reality. Several people described their struggles with intraethnic discrimination. Discrimination by Mapuches hurts, even more than discrimination by Chileans: it is Real pain . . . much more pain, a young girl stated as she described this experience. Discrimination by Chileans often leads Mapuches to search for their roots and descent. Extreme

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frustration can accompany the nding that they are no longer true Mapuches. Jos e Mariman therefore advocates for a broadening of the concept of Mapuche to avoid becoming stuck in the idealization of a rural Mapuche.60 He accuses Mapuche leaders who reject urban Mapuches of myopia. Some Mapuche activists have started thinking about another ethnic image that deviates from the current image of the true Mapuche. These activists address an important question about the development of culture: is the Mapuche culture allowed to evolve? They assert that times have changed and consider it impractical to return to the lifestyle of the true Mapuche. These activists also question the desirability of that lifestyle. One possible manifestation of the development of a new ethnic image is the founding, in 2007, of a nationalist Mapuche political party that explicitly opens itself up for both Chileans and Mapuches. The party emphasizes the region of the Mapuche territory and promises to work for the development and progress of all its inhabitants, without distinction.61

IMPLICATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH

The best homage to weichafe [warrior] Mat as Catrileo is to continue the as struggle, reads the banner on a Mapuche activist Web site.62 Maybe Mat Catrileo did not resemble the image of a true Mapuche as he grew up. Tragically, he now is a true martyr, celebrated in homage ceremonies in Santiago and Temuco. This article describes how the rigid ideal image of the true Mapuche can become an unattainable goal for Mapuche activists who have grown up in cities and have not learned the Mapuche language or Mapuche traditions. They may identify with the Mapuche ethnic category, rejecting the dominant low-status image and, instead, adopting the true Mapuche image; they may become attracted to the Mapuche struggle for land and recognition of their distinct culture and traditions. As they become active, they often face the gap between category and image as fellow activists and political opponents confront them with the discrepancy between their background and practices on the one hand and the characteristics of this true Mapuche on the other hand. Ethnic groups do not exist, proclaimed Brubaker. But processes of ethnic group-making do exist. How do activists deal with the challenges of these processes and what is the role that ethnic labels play in the making of ethnic groups? This article approaches ethnic political mobilization as a process of group-making around an ethnic image. The analytical concepts of category and image are here used to distinguish between the Mapuche label as either a binary category or a normative prototype. By making a distinction between these very different meanings of the ethnic label Mapuche, this analysis attempts to make intelligible how activists juggle ethnic

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labels and how they reject or recognize people while classifying them as heroes, muertos, or ahuincados. The ethnic image is an important modality of ethnicity. Careful analysis of this modality enables us to understand what activists mean when they assert that they want to recuperate the land as Mapuches. An ethnic images content, exibility, and correspondence to reality are key dimensions in an analysis of the role of ethnicity in ethnic mobilization. Further research is needed to explore the specic conditions and consequences of the different values of these dimensions, along with the possible variation of ethnic images across different parts of the Mapuche movement and over time. Warnings against ethnication of conicts must be taken seriously.63 The observation of the use of ethnic labels in conicts in the past has led to simplistic explanations of ethnic mobilization and violence by pointing to ancient hatreds and barbaric, instinctive ghting.64 This study aims to recognize ethnic labels as a reality in the lives of people and to make sense of their usage in explaining the process of mobilization around an ethnic image without falling into the fallacy of turning a label into a cause.65 Ethnic differences are not a given, and even less an autonomous cause of mobilization. They are constructed and reproduced in social interaction. Two strong ethnic images speak to relations between Chileans and Mapuches. On the one hand there is the image of shame in which Mapuches are portrayed as lazy, drunk, aggressive, and barbaric. On the other hand, there is an image of pride. Mapuche activists struggle for the hegemony of the second image. They seek to persuade other ethnic-category Mapuches to adopt this image and to act upon it. This second image is the image of the true Mapuche. In group-making efforts, Mapuche activists face the challenge of dealing with the gap between the reality of the ethnic category and the ethnic image. Their strategies range from active adaptation to the ideal image and raising consciousness, to exclusion from the ethnic category, to the more recent efforts to create a new ethnic image. Further research should explore another strategy some activists seem to employ to gain acceptance as a true Mapuche among some groups in the Mapuche movement: the use of violence. Some of the youth are drawn towards radicalism. The urge to belong despite the obvious gap may sometimes translate into action, even violent action. In prison, the young activist Pablo tells me about his youth. His mother is Mapuche. His father is Chilean. His mother always taught him to be proud of his Mapuche identity. When he was nagged at school and teased with his Mapuche last name, his mother taught him to be proud of his descent and culture. When Pablo came in touch with more Mapuches at his university, he pursued further his quest for his Mapuche identity. He visited the rural Mapuche communities and met older people who still spoke Mapuzugun and had knowledge of the traditions. He worked with them on the land: At age twenty-one I learned to harvest. His respect for true Mapuches was enormous, but becoming one

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of them was not easy. Pablos appearance is very Chilean, and, his rst last name is Chilean. He had to try hard. He had to have patience. He observed that the elderly especially did not accept him easily. But now, nally, he belongs. He now is one of the pe ni (brothers), he concluded at the end of our interview with a brief smile that seemed to express at the same time satisfaction and an acknowledgment of the irony. Further research is necessary to explore the possible relation between Pablos attempts to resemble a true Mapuche and his decision to be among those who use more extreme means in the struggle. My conversations with Pablo demonstrate how his eagerness to belong as a true Mapuche despite his Chilean background fomented his desire to prove his dedication to the Mapuche struggle. He committed an act of sabotage and he was paying for it with a prison sentence when I interviewed him. Indicating that Pablo was not an exception, Mapuche activist Maria commented to me that precisely the most radical organizations and actions seem to attract youth who are the most Chilean (in terms of the ethnic image). The Mapuche conict is not the only setting in which we can observe a gap between the reality of the ethnic category and the ideal of the ethnic image. Two other cases of ethnic political mobilization offer evidence of a contestation between ethnic images along with a discrepancy between reality and ethnic image. Research on the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the United States has shown that young urban indigenous people are more radicalized and willing to protest than the National Congress of American Indians, who are more traditional and advocate more pan-Indian collective action. Urban native americans founded the AIM and were in constant clash with the attitude of more traditional leaders who proclaimed Indians Dont Demonstrate,66 indicating exclusionary practices and a contestation of different ethnic images of a true Indian. Evidence exists to argue that nationalist activists in the Basque country created a positive image of the true Basque that reversed a previous negative image. Miren Alcedo, an anthropologist who interviewed extensively ex-ETA67 members in the Basque Country, describes how they employ an image of the true Basque that tends to glorify village life, whereas in the traditional image people are ashamed of their village backgrounds.68 Similar discrepancies surround the learning of Euskara, the Basque language; it is central for miliants in ETA, whereas, for a while, in the years following the Civil War, Basque peasants stimulated their children to learn only Spanish as a way to gain access to social mobility. Moreover, there are indications that the presence of newcomers in the Basque Country (who are categorized as Spanish) increases identication as Basque only at the expense of a mixed Basque/Spanish identity69 and that several children of newcomers have been attracted to ETA.70 More research into the processes of ethnic political mobilization in the Basque country would be worthwhile; mobilization processes in the left nationalist movement as well as in ETA, with a

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specic focus on the children of immigrants and others who do not t the image of a true Basque and their strategies to bridge that gap.71 It is clear that insight into the use and meaning of ethnic labels in the process of ethnic political mobilization may arise from several different analytical focuses: from analyzing the construction and interaction of different modalities of ethnicity; analyzing the struggle over different ethnic images and processes of recognizing and being recognized as having an ethnic identity; and, especially, analyzing discrepancies between an ethnic image and the reality of the lives of those who are identied as members of the ethnic category.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Jolle Demmers, Jos e Mariman, Christian Mart nez Neira, Yuri Contreras, Michal Luczewski, and the anonymous reviewers for their attentive reading and their detailed remarks on earlier versions. Philip Parnell deserves special mention as his support in the editing of this manuscript was invaluable. I am also indebted to the members of the Contentious Politics Workshop at Columbia University for their creative suggestions and insightful discussion when I presented an earlier version of this paper in October 2007.

NOTES
1. Pedro Cayuqueo, Muerte de Mat as Catrileo Quezada: Estado policial en zona Mapuche, El Ciudadano, 11 March 2008. 2. Victoria Aldunate Morales, Entrevista a M onica Quezada madre de Mat as Catrileo, EutsiPagina de Izquierda Antiautoritaria, 27 March 2008. 3. The expression true Mapuche as an ethnic image is mine. I have witnessed, however, more than one discussion on the question whether something or someone is or is not really Mapuche. 4. Anthony Oberschall, Social Movements; Ideologies, Interests, and Identities (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1993), p. 383. 5. Tilly denes a social movement as sustained campaigns of claim making, using repeated performances that advertise that claim, based on organizations, networks, traditions, and solidarities that sustain these activities in Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow (eds.), Contentious Politics (Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers, 2007), p. 202. 6. See, for example, Victor Naguil, Avanzando hacia el centenario del movimiento Mapuche at (6 July 2007) http://www.wallmapuwen.cl/art naguil jul.htm [accessed 19 March 2009]. 7. Alejandro Saavedra Pel aez, Los Mapuche en la sociedad chilena actual . (Santiago, Chile: LOM Ediciones 2002). 8. Kees Schaepman, Chili. Landenreeks Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (s Gravenhage, The Netherlands: SDU Uitgeverij, 1989), p. 12. 9. Jos e Bengoa, La Emergencia Ind gena en Latinoamerica (Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 2002), p. 45. 10. Coordinadora Arauco Malleco, Violaciones de derechos humanos en comunidades Ma de Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas por la Coorpuches, Informe entregado a la Comision dinadora Mapuche Aracuo-Malleco (Geneva, 1999), p. 4. 11. Andr e Menard and Jorge Pavez, Documentos de la Federacion Araucana y del Comit e Ejecutivo de la Araucan a de Chile, Anales de Desclasicaci on, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2005); Alicia Claire Singer Swords, Ten More Rise Up! How Mapuche Autonomists Confront Timber Companies and the Chilean

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Government in the Mapuche-Timber Conict (1997 to 2001), Masters Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University (2002), p. 24. 12. Jan de Kievid, Brood, werk, gerechtigheid en vrijheid, Chili tussen dictatuur en democratie (Amsterdam: Ravijn, 1993). 13. Enrique Ruiz, Las Entra nas del Descontento. Cerco de las forestales estrangula a familias ind genas Comunidades Mapuches en Conicto, Sin Censura. Reportajes ganadores (Santiago, Chile: Mapuche y LOM Ediciones, 2000), pp. 85120; Victor Toledo Llancaqueo, Prima Ratio. Movilizacion Pol tica Penal. Los marcos de la pol tica ind gena en Chile 19902007, OSAL (Buenos Aires, Argentina: CLACSO), Vol. 8, No. 22 (2007), p. 7; Corporacion de Madera, Mailing Ejecutivo Santiago, March 1999. 14. Alfredo Seguel, El conicto forestal de las empresas madereras en territorio Mapuche y su poder factico en el estado chileno (Temuco, Chile: Instituto Ind gena, 2002); Alicia Claire Singer Swords, pp. 2335. 15. For a map presenting an overview of the territorial conicts in the 8th, 9th, and 10th region of Chile see Toledo Llancaqueo, p. 6. For more information about the conict see, for example, Jos e Bengoa, Historia de un conicto. El estado y los Mapuches en el siglo XX (Santiago, Chile: Planeta/ Ariel 1999); An bal Barrera, El Grito Mapuche. Una historia inconclusa (Santiago, Chile: Grijalbo 1999); Saavedra Pel aez. 16. Auki n Wallmapu Ngulam (Consejo de Todas las Tierras), El Pueblo Mapuche, su Territorio y sus Derechos (Padre las Casas, Chile: Impresos Kolping, 1997); Coordinadora Arauco Malleco; Meli Witran Mapu, Odiokratas, and Consejo Mapuche Pikunche, Weftui pu Weichafe [renacen los Guerreros] pamphlet distributed during a manifestation on 12 Oct. 2002 in Santiago. 17. Toledo Llancaqueo, p. 2, footnote 1; Singer Swords, p. 29. 18. Instituto Nacional de Estad stica INE-CHILE, Hojas Informativas. Estad sticas Sociales. Pueblos Ind genas en Chile, Censo 2002; INE-CHILE, Instituto Nacional de Estad stica, and MIDEPLAN/BID Programa Or genes, Estad sticas Sociales de los Pueblos Ind genas en Chile, Censo 2002. 19. Instituto Nacional de Estad stica INE-CHILE, Estadisticas sociales culturales, Censo 1992 http:// www.ine.cl/canales/chile estadistico/estadisticas sociales culturales/etnias/xls/etnias1992.xls [accessed 15 Aug. 2008]. 20. Powerpoint Presentation developed by the Instituto Nacional de Estad stica INE-CHILE for a presentation on 15 April 2005 in New Zealand, http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/B5D4274791FE45829CA27FC9D59C9087/0/PRESENT143.ppt Slide 3: Demographic trends of the indigenous population in Chile, [Accessed 15 Aug. 2008]. This different outcome demonstrates the relevance of insight into processes of ethnic identication. 21. Roger Brubaker and David D. Laitin, Ethnic and Nationalist Violence, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 24 (1998), pp. 42352. Fearon and Laitin specically urge scholars to explore the ways in which the construction of ethnic identity would lead to violence in: James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity, International Organization, Vol. 54, No. 4 (2000), pp. 84577. 22. McAdam et al. argue with respect to mobilization that scholars have to explain how people who at a given point in time are not making contentious claims start doing so. In Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 34. 23. These contextual dimensions, called political opportunities, include regime shifts, periods of political instability, or changes in the composition of elites that may provide an opening for social movements, in Donatella Della Porta, Research on Social Movements and Political Violence, Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 31 (2008), pp. 22130, p. 223. 24. To preserve condentiality the names of informants are not their real names. 25. Roger Brubaker, Ethnicity Without Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Press, 2004), p. 3. 26. Roger Brubaker, Ethnicity Without Groups, Archives europennes de sociologie [European Journal of Sociology] , Vol. 43, No. 2 (2002), pp. 16389, p. 170. 27. Gerd Baumann, The Multicultural Riddle: Rethinking National, Ethnic, and Religious Identities (New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 59. 28. Lawrence D. Wieder and Steven Pratt, On Being a Recognizable Indian Among Indians, in D. Carbaugh (ed.), Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1990), p. 48.

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29. Ibid., p. 52. 30. Henri Tajfel, Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 33 (1982), pp. 139; Brubaker, 2004; Richard Jenkins, When Politics and Social Theory Converge: Group Identication and Group Rights in Northern Ireland, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 12, No. Autumn-Winter (2006), pp. 389410; T. H. Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press, 1993). 31. Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner, The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior, in D. A. Stapel and H. Blanton (eds.), Social Comparison Theories: Key Readings (New York: Psychology Press, 2007). 32. As Mapuches are Chilean citizens these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As ethnic labels, however, they are understood to be exclusive. 33. In Henri Tajfel, Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 33 (1982), pp. 139, p. 4. 34. An ethnic image resembles what Todd et al. called the meaning of ethnic identications. In Jennifer Todd, Theresa OKeefe, Nathalie Rougier, and Lorenze Canas Bottos, Fluid or Frozen? Choice and Change in Ethno-National Identication in Contemporary Northern Ireland, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 12, No. Autumn-Winter (2006), pp. 32346. 35. This modality of ethnicity resembles what Brubaker referred to as ethnicity as a discursive frame, in Brubaker, Ethnicity Without Groups, p. 167. 36. Tajfel and Turner. 37. For a description of the discrimination towards the Mapuches during Pinochet see Roberto Morales, Cultura Mapuche y Represi on en Dictadura, Revista Austral de Ciencias Sociales, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1999), pp. 81108. 38. Maria de la Luz Domper and M. De los Angeles Santander, Problemas y programas indigenas reformas pendientes, Serie Informe Social No.49, Libertad y Desarrollo, July 1998, p. 5 39. Ibid., p. 6. 40. Rosita Camhi and Maria de la Luz Domper, Analisis de la Situacion Economica y Social de los Pueblos Indigenas: Reformas Pendientes, Serie Informe Social No.72, Libertad y Desarrollo, Jan. 2003. 41. Tajfel and Turner. 42. Fanon already argued that the image of the other not only exists in the hegemonic discourse but that the other often has internalized this same image, in Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963). 43. See, for example, Lya Vollering, Een geschiedenis van Quechacuin, Thesis University of Utrecht, Cultural Anthropology, Utrecht, (1994), p. 119. 44. Tajfel and Turner, p. 367. 45. Baumann, p. 92. 46. Tajfel and Turner, p. 366. 47. Saavedra estimates that in 1992 only 32% of the Mapuches lived in the rural areas of one of the three regions, where the Mapuches had their original territory (Saavedra Pel aez, p. 30). 48. For a discursive discussion of these changes see the article by Gloria Marivil Co noep an and Jeannette Segovia Delgado, El sentido de la historia de los Mapuche, una aproximaci on al discurso historico, Liwen LOM Ediciones No. 5 (1999), pp. 138155, in Co noep an and Delgado, 1999. 49. Evangelization may be one of the assimilation strategies Mapuches employed. 50. Vivienne Jabri, Discourses on Violence (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 140. 51. The gathering took place on 8, 9, and 10 Feb. 2003 in Temuco. The event was called Petu Mogelein, which means we are still alive. 52. Of course, activists also aim to achieve that non-Mapuches adopt the true Mapuche image. However, whenever these non-Mapuches start to imitate the image of the true Mapuches they are often (deprecatingly) referred to as Mapuchistas. 53. Standing claims say that actor or group belongs and represents an established certied category within the region and therefore deserves the rights and respect that members of that category should receive (see Tilly and Tarrow 2005: 82). http://www.ssrc.org/essays/tilly/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ tilly-castaneda-2007-cp-part-1.ppt [accessed 29 April 2009]. 54. Mapu means land in Mapuzugun, che is human being. 55. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday, 1959). 56. Tajfel, p. 9.

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57. Meli Witran Mapu, Coordinadora Mapuche Arauko Malleko (CAM), Importancia y Signicado, Weichan, Vol. 3, No.7 (2003), http://www.meli.mapuches.org/spip.php?article18 [accessed 29 April 2009]. 58. Activists call a Mapuche who is Chileanized ahuincado. Huinca means thief in Mapuzugun. It is a pejorative word Mapuches use to refer to Chileans or foreigners and its meaning is a reference to the process in which the Mapuches were moved into reservations after the Pacicaci on de la Araucan a. 59. Bengoa wrote a chapter titled Nguillatun en Santiago, in which he explores the questions that Mapuche migrants see themselves confronted with when they want to hold a traditional religious ceremony in a city of millions while in the ceremony the nature is essential, in Bengoa; see also Gloria en la gran ciudad, Nutram Liempi, Nguillatun , Vol. 5, No. 2 (1989), p. 52. 60. Jos e Marim an, Que despierte y se pronuncie el gigante silenciado! Azkintuwe, Vol. 1, No. 4 (2004), pp. 1214. 61. The information in this paragraph is drawn from a conversation I had with one of the founders of the political party and the following sources: Claudia Urquieta, A las puertas de la legalizacion se encuentra partido mapuche, Azkintuwe 27 Aug. 2007; Pedro Cayuqueo, La democracia chilena est a en deuda con los mapuches, Azkintuwe (8 May 2006), http://www.wallmapuwen.cl/principios.htm [accessed 7 March 2009]. 62. See http://paismapuche.cl/paismapuche.html (pa s Mapuche means Mapuche country) [accessed 5 Jan. 2008]. 63. John Mueller, The Banality of Ethnic War, in M. E. Brown, O. R. Cot e, Jr., S. M. Lynn-Jones, and S. E. Miller (eds.), Nationalism and Ethnic Conict (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 97125; Saavedra Pel aez, pp. 56. 64. Brown rejects these simplistic explanations in his introduction to an edited book on nationalism and ethnic conict: Michael E. Brown, The Causes of Internal Conict: An Overview, in M. E. Brown, O. R. Cot e, Jr., S. M. Lynn-Jones, and S. E. Miller (eds.), Nationalism and Ethnic Conict (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 325. 65. Fearon and Laitin. 66. Dean J. Kotlowski, Alcatraz, Wounded Knee, and Beyond: The Nixon and Ford Administrations Respond to Native American Protest, The Pacic Historical Review, Vol. 72, No. 2 (2003), pp. 20127. 67. Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) is an armed organization using violence to support its claims for an independent Basque Country. 68. Miren Alcedo, Militar en ETA. Historias de Vida y Muerte (Haranburu Editor, 1996). 69. Enric Mart nez-Herrera, Nationalist Extremism and Outcomes of State Policies in the Basque Country, 19792001, International Journal on Multicultural Societies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2002), footnote 22. 70. A well-known example of a particularly radical ETA member and son of immigrants is I naki de Juana Chaos. 71. The observation that many radical Basque nationalists do not resemble the ideal image of a true Basque (such as speaking the language) was also expressed in several interviews I conducted in the Basque country.

Carolijn Terwindt is currently a doctoral candidate at Columbia University. She received a bachelor and masters in both cultural anthropology and law from the University of Utrecht, as well as an LLM from Columbia Law School. She has research experience in Chile, India, the United States, and Spain.