Returning to the land, evoking the past, and sowing the future: Guaran Indians and the formation

of new rural communities in Northern Argentina SilviaMaraHirsch UNSAM Colloquium Life Configurations April 2-4, 2012 UNSAM Lujan, Buenos Aires Indigenous peoples in Argentina have undergone a dramatic process of marginalization, exploitation and invisibilization of their cultures and identities. However, in the last three decades these groups have experienced a gradual process of empowerment as a result of democratization, legislative reforms and the development of indigenous organizations and leadership. This in turn has allowed them to claim for their legal rights and demand assistance from the State and its institutions. Modernization has led to an unyielding process of urbanization whereby indigenous peoples have lost access to their ancestral territory and to their former ways of subsistence. Furthermore, urbanization is fraught with overcrowding, with a loss of vital social space and a dismemberment of communal forms of life. The process of land claims is deeply influenced by these urban experiences, and is aimed at regaining control of their territory and building new communities. In Northwestern Argentina, in the province of Salta, Guaran and Tapiete indigenous communities have undergone urbanization and lost access to their ancestral lands for cultivation. However, many families have continued to practice agriculture in a context of sustained pressure and encroachment of their territoty, in a transitional habitat characterized by the presence of agribusiness, oil and gas companies and private properties. But in the last two decades settlement in unoccupied lands has intensified and indigenous families have moved from urban to rural areas to built new communities. In fact, they have begun a process of land claims in territories that used to belong to them and in other lands which were not part of their ancestral

territory, but which are available to settle and cultivate. These movements are deeply rooted in the narratives and oral history of their ancestors and their own notions of spatiality and nature. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ways in which indigenous processes of re-ruralization and territorialization are rooted in memories of the past, involve changing the present and envisioning the future of new generations. Oral histories and experiences of agriculture and nature are present in the everyday lives of indigenous families. These narratives are intertwined with native notions of freedom, autonomy, and self-reliance. The tensions inherent in these processes- the imagined past, the lived present, and the projected futureform a complex web of symbols, discourses and practices. Furthermore, this paper addresses some of the following questions: In which ways do Guaran and Tapiete cultural configurations weave the past, present and future to foster the creation of new communities? How is well-being at the individual and collective level achieved amidst a context of exclusion, intense socio-cultural change and external pressure? Settlers of these new communities refer to a state of tranquility and contact with nature as being part of their essence and grounding in the world. Forming and building a new community entails a collective venture which cannot endure without group consensus; it involves gathering people with a common objective willing to sustain hardships and obstacles. This process is in dialogue with the past, in fact it evokes memories and narratives of their ancestors who almost a century ago migrated from southern Bolivia and from their rural communities in Argentina to work in sugar-cane plantations of the region and who also founded new settlements. The process of reterritorialization is grounded on a notion of territory which includes productive, reproductive, spiritual and political components which are part of the everyday life of indigenous peoples (Gordillo 2011, Perico y Ribero 2002).

Finally, in this paper I incorporate a gender perspective, whereby analysis of womens roles and participation in the process of community building exemplifies the dynamic transformation of indigenous society and how the subaltern- in terms of ethnicity and gender-reconfigure notions of agency and empowerment. This paper focuses on indigenous families from urbanized communities that are settling in rural areas in plots which range between 15 and 300 hectares. These lands are surrounded by agribusiness, livestock farms, oil and gas refineries, indigenous communities as well as non-Indian settlements. Northwest Argentina is undergoing intensive land pressure, ecological changes, demographic growth, and expansion of agriculture. Land claims and settlement in rural space have an important political component and involve the struggle for recognition of the indigenous peoples ethnic identity, citizenship rights, and their sense of belonging to the nation (Gordillo 2011). The Tapiete and Guaran Indians who claim their lands and resettle in rural areas are basing their claims on their selfrecognition as indigenous peoples, and in so doing they are grounding their claims on legal rights guaranteed by the argentine constitution. In the first part of this paper I present a brief history of the settlement of these two indigenous groups in communities of northwest Argentina, and describe how the Tapiete and Guarani conceptualize notions of space and territory. In the second part I analyze how oral narratives are reenacted in the present to help construct discourses and practices linked to metaphors of the land and nature. Finally, in the third part I address womens participation in constructing new communities and the circumstances that have allowed them to become active and creative agents. What lies at the core of the indigenous peoples distress in their lives in urban settings is how these experiences clash with their own notions of spatiality and how their memories unveil images of nature and well-being. The cases of reterrriotrialization I examine in this paper have polysemic meanings in terms of how the lands are occupied and signified. In some cases, the lands claimed by these indigenous groups are rooted in an ancestral history because they were inhabited and cultivated by them in previous times. In other cases these are new

lands, there is no particular history connected to that portion of land, but the connection operates at a symbolic and emotional level. In order words, these lands and the nature in which they are embedded are a metonymy which operates at a discoursive and experiential level, because land and nature are engrained in the ways in which indigenous peoples experience space and wellbeing. In many cases the land that these social actors claim constitute small enclaves surrounded by a diversity of social actors, enterprises and ventures. Some authors refer to these contexts as new rurality, which involves the coexistence of small and large producers, agribusiness, tourism, oil and gas companies, peasants, rural workers, indigenous communities, and land invasions (Giarracca 2004). These rural areas to involve a multifuncionality of the use of space and forms of livelihood. In other words, people resort to multiple strategies to sustain their lives in these new environments. Hence, the settlers produce crops for their subsistence and if they have surplus they sell them, but they also have permanent and temporal jobs or receive government subsidies that allow them to support their families. Guaranes y Tapietes: formation of communities in northwest Argentina The Guarani of Northern Argentina are also known in the ethnographic literature as chiriguanos, but since the last three decades their self-denomination is Guaran. Although there is historical evidence that there were Guarani settlements in northwest Argentina since the 18th century, the presence of thousands of Guarani and of the Tapiete Indians as well, is the result of massive migrations which began in the end of the 19th century and intensified during the 20th century. During the first 4 decades of the 20th century, thousands of Guaran and Tapiete Indians, among many other indigenous groups, migrated to the sugar-cane plantations and farms of the provinces of Salta and Jujuy in search for work. In addition, the Chaco war which took place between Bolivia and Paraguay from 1932-1935 affected the lives of many indigenous peoples who

were living in the zone of conflict and who were forced to leave their ancestral communities. These migrations were sustained until the 1970s and resulted in the permanent settlement of thousands of Guarani and Tapiete in Argentina. Gordillo (2011) refers to the identity of these Guaran groups as a diasporic indigeneity. Migration both historical and contemporary is part of the narratives of these indigenous groups. The massive migrations to northern Argentina activated an utopian imaginary of this new land which these groups called mbaporenda the land where there is work. Argentina thus became the land that provides greater well-being, a sense of future, and that opens the possibility of constructing new communities, amidst very different social political and economic conditions (Nordenskild 1912, Metraux 1935, Hirsch 1989, 2006). Hence, the memories of the Guaran and Tapiete are two-fold and in two stages, on the one hand memories of the past in Bolivia, in rural areas with greater extensions of land, traditional culture and use of native language, the place of origin and the place of the ancestors; and on the other hand, northern Argentina, as a land more modernized, with loss of culture and language, but with the possibilities of a better livelihood and a promise of a better future. The idealized past evoked in the memories of both groups projects essentialist notions of culture, for my interviewees the time they lived of the land, closer to nature life was better, they were stronger, healthier and did not depend as much on wage labor. Life in the countryside also provided a strengthening of family and communal bonds, a space for the performance of communal rituals, for the free use of their native tongue. These visions lie at the core of their ways of reading the past and understanding the present. And these memories are in tension with other memories of the past, because the ideal past was a time of hardship as well, labor exploitation, injustices, periods of Ikaruai hunger, lack of access to health and education. The older generation of men and women have transmitted to their children and grandchildren an oral history based on the importance of the land, and the sense of rootedness, insisting in their narratives that their livelihood used to be based on the practice of agriculture. Land involves toiling the soil but also

living in an ample space. The Guarani and Tapiete, perceive the world as formed by three concentric spheres the oka (patio) where social interactions take place; the koo (fields) where the basic staples of the diet are planted and harvested; and the kaa or bush, the space where animals and supernatural beings lives. These three spheres are the integral realms of existence, they connect the sphere of the supernatural, production and reproduction, and cultural and social life. This is the physical space men and women cherish and yearn for. Antes vivamos de la siembra: new Tapiete settlements The Tapietes are a group who has undergone a dramatic process of sedentarization and urbanization. This group migrated from a large territory in southern Bolivia where they lived from hunting, gathering and fishing and also practiced horticulture. In the 1940s and 50s Tapiete families decide not to return to Bolivia but to settle in Argentina, in the city of Tartagal. Initially they lived in the center of the town, but they were gradually pushed to the periphery of the city to where they are now located in a very small community composed of 4 blocks. Initially their community had space for their gardens, and they planted their crops and raised some chickens and ducks, but in the 1980s the community was divided into small plots with no space left for their gardens. This abrupt process of urbanization was a tremendously painful and dramatic experience, in fact it constituted a turning point that let to greater dependency on wage labor and contact with nature was beginning to be severed. However, many tapietes continued interacting with the bush and nature. In fact they visited relatives who live 350 km away, or walked a couple of kilometers to where they gathered wood, collected plants for traditional medicine and honey. During a fieldtrip in 2011 I was told about two new rural Tapiete settlements. I first visited Tapiete 4, a small plot of 28 hectares in which 30 families are beginning to work the land and make their houses. I asked one of its founders, Juan Vega, what were the motives to settle in this plot and he

responded we cant live there any longer there is no space, young people dont know what it used to be like, but we used to live from our crops, we have lot of family, some have 8 or 10 children. Before the community was formed we lived dispersed, and not crowded.

A week after this visit Federico, another Tapiete told me that a group of his relatives, mostly women, were cleaning 15 hectares to build houses and plant the land, and mentioned the following: its like starting over, its like starting to live again, this gave me the energy to continue. We both went to visit his aunt and nieces while they were cleaning the land to built houses and plant their gardens. I observed the enthusiasm which the women felt in this new collective project. They named the plot Koe piahu, which means New Dawn. I observed a group of 6 women cleaning the bush of this future new community. Miriam, one of them, explained to me that her sisters didnt know how to use a machete, so she taught them, and remembered that when she was a child she used to accompany her grandmother to plant and harvest in the garden they had next to 7

their community. Miriam and her sisters are enthusiastic about this new project, they are motivated with the idea of having more space to live, and in their words a project for the future.

Searching for nature and tranquility: the development of new rural settlements. In the case of the Guaran, the urbanized community called Cherenta, exemplifies the multiple territorial displacements imposed on a group and the forced process of relocation and urbanization. The inhabitants of Cherenta were moved to their current community located 3 km from the centre of Tartagal, four decades ago, and currently demographic growth, closeness to the city and the lack of jobs have forced many people to search for temporal work outside the community. This in turn led to a decrease and to certain extent abandonment of agricultural practices. Some families began to feel the threat of overcrowding,

the problems it generates in interpersonal and family relations, the constant sound of blaring music, the presence of new social problems such as drug consumption and alcoholism. All of these factors motivated a group of approximately 30 families in 2007 to reoccupy land which used to be cultivated by the elders located only 1 km away from Cherenta. These families cleared the land, planted their crops, built precarious dwellings and named the community Tenta Ipau, or Pueblo Nuevo in Spanish. Some of these families decided to settle permanently in this location, while others spent the day and return to sleep in their houses in Cherenta.

I noticed the significant presence of women who have moved with their younger children and grandchildren. These women worked as domestic servants for many years, and in their youth they accompanied their parents and husbands to work in the regions harvests. Their memories are marked by their low salaries, extended hours away from their homes and children, and economic instability, but they remember accompanying their grandparents to work in their fields, and what this meant to them. These women have lived the larger part of their lives in the town, and they had been distanced from rural work for many years. However, their notion of space, of interpersonal relations and their sense of grounding in the world, is in consonance with Guaran notions of spatiality. The oka, patio, the koo fields, are spaces they long for. The oka is the locus of social interaction, it is where men and women meet to drink mate, prepare food, gossip, exchange information, or simply share the afternoon with their family. This space is distant from the overcrowded and noisy patios of their houses, it is distant from the disagreements with neighbors; and there is no presence of drugs or alcohol. Hence they feel the new communities restore tranquility and health as well as Guarani forms of reciprocity.

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Conclusion Tapiete and guaran men and women are part of the unstable workforce of the region, they supplement their meager income with social subsidies provided by the state. Women who decide to settle in these areas and form part of the project of ruralization have a fundamental role in making this project viable. They contribute with their social subsidies to the families economic sustenance and they are providing the logistic support which involves the caretaking tasks of the domestic sphere. In conversations conducted the people they all referred to the emotional well-being they feel in the rural space, the silence, the tranquility. Juan Palavecino, a Tapiete who works as a butcher in town and is enthusiastically planning the fields in a rural community expressed the following: Being in the community is connecting to nature, because we are natural, this is a dead wall, it doesnt have life, it protects us from the wind, heat, cold, thats all. But there in nature, you can smell the flowers, you can hear the birds such as the charata, the parrots, its so natural that we need to connect to nature, and why? Because its our culture and more so because we are Indians. Because that comes from the roots, from the blood, I carry it in my blood. In the new rural settlements the living conditions are difficult, the houses are precarious, they lack running water and electricity, but the oka ( patio) is the axis of indigenous social life, the space shared with family, friends, and neighbors the space rooted in indigenous forms of family and community sociability. In the cases analyzed in this paper, memories of the past generate an experience of well-being and of future projects. The settlement in new communities involves participation in assemblies, in the request for support to the municipality, government offices and other institutions. To occupy these lands involves a vision of the future, a sense of autonomy and the project of community building, and in these processes women are active agents of collective construction. Women provide the daily work not only of domestic reproduction, because they

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cook, clean, take care of the children, but they are also involved in taking care of the domestic animals, in supporting their husbands, in contributing with their social subsidies to make these projects viable. But women and men feel profoundly identified with rural spaces, and they are transmitting these feelings and experiences to their children and grandchildren. Hence, women and men of diverse ages activate a project of community building in spaces rooted in family histories, narrative and memories. The process of reruralization here described is incipient, we are uncertain about its longevity, whether these fragile spaces will endure the pressure of agribusiness, oil and gas refineries, private landowners, and whether women will be able to achieve greater political and economic power. But what I observe is a life configuration which entails collective, communal and shared practices and experiences grounded in history and memory, geared to the future. Bibliography Giarraca, Norma (2004) (2004). Introduccin. Amrica Latina, nuevas ruralidades, viejas y nuevas acciones colectivas. En publicacion: Ruralidades Latinoamericanas. Identidades y luchas sociales. CLACSO, Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Gordillo, Gastn (2011) Longing for Elsewhere, Guaran Reterrritorializations. Comparative Studies in Society and History 53 (4) 855-881. Hirsch, Silvia (2006) El pueblo tapiete de Argentina, historia y cultura. Instituto de Lingstica, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Perico y Ribero (2002) Nueva Ruralidad Visin del territorio en Amrica Latina y el Caribe. Instituto Internamericano de Cooperacin para la Agricultura.

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