A Case of Mistaken Identity: State and Cultural Constructions of Mapuche Womanhood Through Activism

Abstract

This paper will first discuss the Chilean state and Chilean feminists’ understanding of Mapuche women’s identity. I will argue that the Mapuche are used as a means to an end, then discarded when they have served their purpose to the state. After I highlight this distortion of the Mapuche women by the Chilean state, I uncover how the Mapuche culture recognizes its people to build on my argument that colonialism and the Pinochet dictatorship created a fundamental shift in Mapuche methods of identifying each other. Lastly, I will peel back the layers of what Mapuche women believe it means to be Mapuche and how this view has come to contrast with the Chilean state and various Mapuche communities.

University Libraries Undergraduate Research Award