Abstract

MANZANELLI, Macarena. Interpretations of the Past in Contemporary Community Reassurance Processes. The Case of the Tolombón People-Community (Choromoro Valley, Argentina). Historelo.rev.hist.reg.local [online]. 2021, vol.13, n.26, pp.37-72.  Epub Dec 10, 2020. ISSN 2145-132X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/historelo.v13n26.85410.

For several years, in a context of worsening territorial disputes and delegitimation by landowning families and the provincial judiciary, the Tolombón People-Community (province of Tucumán, Argentina) has promoted communalization processes in order to legitimise their territorial origin, possession and pre-existence. In this article, bonds with the past were studied through activities undertaken by Tolombón people: workshops on reflection and explanation of practices adopted by their elder-ancestors, and the search and recovery of a Royal Deed, dating from the colonial period. Participant observation and interview techniques during the years 2017-2019 were part of the methodology employed to address this work. Tolombón people has explored transient temporal bonds through the elaboration of community memories and durable nexus by means of recovery and reappreciation of archaeological materiality, archives and colonial narratives about their ancestors-elders. It was concluded that the combination of these actions, on the one hand, reflects that the idea of "community" is based on the evidence of cultural continuities between the past and the present, and, on the other hand, it enables counter-hegemonic reinterpretations, in light of contemporary territorial disputes.

Keywords : Diaguita people; disputes; territory; communalization; memories; history.

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