Study Questions for Mallon, “Indigenous Peoples and Nation-States in Spanish America, 1780-2000”
In the opening paragraph of this chapter, Florencia Mallon challenges scholars of indigenous populations in Latin America during the national period to pursue a “deeper understanding of how the silencing of indigenous histories of expropriation and exclusion, as well as ongoing struggles for restitution and recognition, [have] everywhere left colonial tracings in even the most progressive forms of the national-popular state.” (281) After reading the chapter, ponder what you think she means by this statement.
General question: How does land factor into the experience of indigenous communities?
If the goal of Latin American nation-builders was a unitary nation based on an abstract concept of “citizenship rooted in European liberalism,” what did the region’s nation-states have at the turn of the twentieth-century?
Independence Era
What challenges did unconquered indigenous groups present to nation-builders in Argentina and Chile?
How did it differ from the Andes and central Mexico?
19th Century
Why is the 1855 Liberal revolution in Mexico important to understanding the relationship between the central state and the indigenous populations?
What two main questions did this relationship revolve around? Why?
How did Peru differ from Mexico?
How does Mallon explain the difference between the countries?
What are the similarities and differences for indigenous in Chile and Argentina?
20th Century
What did the near annihilation of indigenous communities in Argentina and Chile lead to the survival of?
What did the 1910 Revolution in Mexico generate?
What happened in Peru?
Why was there a conflict between “the very survival of an autonomous indigenous population” and the “existence of a modern nation”?
Why was the problem of land for the indigenous not something that could be resolved simply through education and integration?
What is the importance of the examples of Manuel Aburto Panguilef and Manuel Quintín Lame?
Why did indigenous activists leave the national-popular projects?
How does the United Nations and its rhetoric and focus on human rights fit into this history?
What are these narratives of “indigenous revitalizations” all about?
What is the “common conceptual thread” of indigenous peoples in Spanish America?
What is the big take-away?
In the opening paragraph of this chapter, Florencia Mallon challenges scholars of indigenous populations in Latin America during the national period to pursue a “deeper understanding of how the silencing of indigenous histories of expropriation and exclusion, as well as ongoing struggles for restitution and recognition, [have] everywhere left colonial tracings in even the most progressive forms of the national-popular state.” (281) After reading the chapter, ponder what you think she means by this statement.
General question: How does land factor into the experience of indigenous communities?
If the goal of Latin American nation-builders was a unitary nation based on an abstract concept of “citizenship rooted in European liberalism,” what did the region’s nation-states have at the turn of the twentieth-century?
Independence Era
What challenges did unconquered indigenous groups present to nation-builders in Argentina and Chile?
How did it differ from the Andes and central Mexico?
19th Century
Why is the 1855 Liberal revolution in Mexico important to understanding the relationship between the central state and the indigenous populations?
What two main questions did this relationship revolve around? Why?
How did Peru differ from Mexico?
How does Mallon explain the difference between the countries?
What are the similarities and differences for indigenous in Chile and Argentina?
20th Century
What did the near annihilation of indigenous communities in Argentina and Chile lead to the survival of?
What did the 1910 Revolution in Mexico generate?
What happened in Peru?
Why was there a conflict between “the very survival of an autonomous indigenous population” and the “existence of a modern nation”?
Why was the problem of land for the indigenous not something that could be resolved simply through education and integration?
What is the importance of the examples of Manuel Aburto Panguilef and Manuel Quintín Lame?
Why did indigenous activists leave the national-popular projects?
How does the United Nations and its rhetoric and focus on human rights fit into this history?
What are these narratives of “indigenous revitalizations” all about?
What is the “common conceptual thread” of indigenous peoples in Spanish America?
What is the big take-away?