Approaches to the history and reconstruction of memories of indigenous women in Chile’s southern zone

Abstract

This paper aims to account for the results of the research Feminine traces at the south of the world. Contributions for the memory and history of selknam, aonikenk, yamana and kawesqar women, developed between 2014 and 2016 in Chile’s southern zone. Specifically, it exposes the results of local and regional file review work, both written and visual, based on a methodological, ethnohistorical and ethnographic approach. The archives have a descriptive attribute and they are understood as an approach to comprehend indigenous women historical condition and situation and their action context in the south end sociocultural universe. From the set of findings, key thematic ideas have been selected allowing us to comprehend three main aspects: a) The indigenous women ways of representation and discourses captured in chronicles and memories elaborated in the context of the ancestral peoples civilizing process at the end of the world, b) Reconstruction of terrestrial and canoe women
histories and memories, emphasizing on the feminine domains, sociocultural dynamics and symbolical universes and c) The impact of the XXth century colonizing and civilizing project on the cultural weaves of indigenous groups.