Mapuche Poetry in Post-Dictatorship Chile: Confronting the Dilemmas of Neoliberal Multiculturalism

Untitled

“…As Joanna Crow (2008) points out, Aniñir parallels Charles Hale's "antagonistic indian" in his refusal to dialogue or conform to the expectations of state institutions. Aniñir's marginal position has been analyzed in relation to his urban indigenous identity, the complications that have arisen in relation to his economic condition, his spiritual heritage, which is related to language (Collins 2014) and more recently, his masculinity (Garside 2016).…”

“…His refusal to buy into any fundamentalist discourse with regard to either Chilean/Western or Mapuche culture is reinforced in his work through antipoetic strategies which will be discussed in the following section. However, Aniñir's "literary acts of decolonisation", which force dialogue even as he appears to eschew it (Crow 2015), are also carried out in the spirit of Parra, who ultimately aspired to push figures of the literary establishment, as well as the reader, out of their complacency. This intention famously expressed by Parra to "repartir mierda con ventilador.…”

Mapuche mnemonics: Beyond modernity’s violence

“…As Johanna Crow (2008) cautiously argues in her article “Mapuche Poetry in Post-Dictatorship Chile,” we might do well to be suspicious of the neoliberal market and its celebratory model of indigenous cultural production, since the neoliberal version of celebration has not been able to break from the structures of colonial relations and its power imbalances. Patricia Richards makes this point more forcefully by stating, neoliberal multiculturalism had done little to challenge dominant racial hierarchies in the Chilean South and indeed the multicultural reforms have not been directly aimed at transforming the subjectivities of local elites.…”

Ritualized Dimensions of Personhood, Sociality, and Power among the Mapuche of Chile

“…This practice is changing, however, as seen in the recent proliferation of historical, anthropological, literary, and other studies on the Mapuche (see Briones 2007;Crow 2008Crow , 2010Mallon 2002Mallon , 2005Reuque and Isolde 2002). The two books under review are particularly important in bringing wider attention to the Mapuche, as they provide extremely detailed ethnographic work to understanding contemporary Mapuche existence, and also link Mapuche social philosophies and other experiences to intellectual arenas that go well beyond Chile.…”