Stone yards, open fields and sacred places. Memories of relatedness in Chubut´s central plateau

Abstract

The “Indigenous issue” as a state policy in Argentina has been accompanied by an academic production of ethnic maps. Hegemonic definitions of these entities used to presume some “essential” elements like the phenotype, the use of language or consanguineous lineage membership. Based on the reformulation of kinship theory, which came from the heuristic model of houses and relatedness theory, we propose an approach to social memory as an alternative framework for historical interpretation. This includes kinship social practices as well as the materialization of group membership’s continuity in policies and places of memory -such as stone yards, productive activities, open fields and sacred places- in the Chubut central plateau. Finally, we argue that regarding a physical space, these relations question not only the ethnic-national classifications but also the traditional academic definitions of kinship and chieftaincy.