The State Legislating, Surveying, Mapping. An Ethnography of the Land Program of Indigenous Communities in Salta, Argentina

Abstract

Taking as a starting point my collaboration in the gathering and systematization of facts about the land survey in different Guarani communities in the northwestern region of the province of Salta, in support of the Land Program of Indigenous Communities and within the framework of the indigenous community property possession Emergency Law, in this article I set out to describe and analyze the different moments of the application of the program. Fundamentally, I explore the particular forms the program adopted in Salta province and I focus my analysis on the Departamento General San Martín, as this is the most ethnically diverse region in the whole province. Inspired by Ferguson’s and Gupta’s work perspective (2002) of thinking the State as “a lived experience”, I use ethnographic evidence from three indigenous communities where the program was applied and focus on one of them with the aim of thinking about the forms that the relationship between indigenous peoples and the State adopt under these special circumstances.