La clientelización de la etnicidad: hegemonía partidaria y subjetividades políticas indígenas

Abstract

In this article, I examine how the demands and political subjectivities of indigenous people in the Argentinean province of Formosa are intertwined with, and constituted by, party politics. In particular, I analyze how the ethnic dimensions of the mobilizations and political demands by Toba, Pilagá, and Wichí groups are closely configured by the webs of patron-client relations woven by factions of the provincial ruling party, the Partido Justicialista. Rather that implying the subordination of ethnic identities to power relations external to them, this process brings to light the ways in which ethnicity is constituted and reshaped by relations of political domination. Further, I examine how what could be called the «clientelization of ethnicity» produces both political control and practices of resistance and accommodation, from which indigenous people push for their demands from within the factionalism of the ruling party.