On inclusions that exclude.

Desert, indigenous otherness and national territoriality in the first Argentinian cartographic productions

Abstract

Territorial representations have been fundamental for the formation of modern Nation-State. This article analyzes the ways some cartographic productions disseminated during the Argentine Nation-State formation and contributed to create hegemonic image of the country. More specifically, it studies the mechanisms by which those representations defined the Pampean-Patagonian region as a desert, that is to say, as a differentiated space of the nation. This work reflects on the process of unmarking Argentinian identity and marking indigenous otherness by considering the thesis in which the concept of desert in Argentina involves an historical and political way of asking about the social relationship with indigenous people. In this way, it seeks to contribute to the recognition and the historical contextualization of the Argentine space-temporal process of collective identification and control of sociocultural diversity.