Endless dispossession: the Charrua re-emergence in Uruguay in the light of settler colonialism

Abstract

ABSTRACT In a country like Uruguay, that imagines itself as a ‘country without Indians’, the emergence of groups of activists who claim to be of indigenous descent has provoked a series of reactions that cover a wide spectrum that goes from mockery to wrath. The State and some of the most revered anthropologists (like Daniel Vidart and Renzo Pi Hugarte), as well as the general public, are reluctant to recognize their legitimacy. This has serious legal consequences in that country, which does not count with a specific legal framework to deal with indigenous matters due to the fact that Uruguay has not ratified the ILO Convention number 169, which is the most important international piece of indigenous legislation that has binding power for the ratifying nations. In this paper, I will discuss the pertinence of settler colonial studies for the understanding of some historical processes in the Southern Cone. I will also try to shed some light on the Uruguayan case through an analysis of the importance of the Marxian notion of primitive accumulation, which explains the process of dispossession suffered by the diverse indigenous groups that populated the land before the arrival of European settlers. Hopefully, this will shed some light on the sometimes angry and violent reactions of Uruguayan mainstream society to the reemergence of indigenous collectives in a country where they were thought to be extinct: their reappearance puts into question the legitimate possession of the land by the Uruguayan State and its inhabitants.