Memorias disidentes. Revista de estudios críticos del patrimonio, archivos y memorias

EDITORIAL

2025-07-31T20:02:02+00:00

Epistemic and ontological sovereignty in the recovery and return of ancestors to their territories

2025-08-05T13:25:26+00:00

This essay is both a reflection based on our own experience and long-standing commitment to the processes of repatriation, restitution, and reburial, and a discussion of contemporary debates on the subject, including the works presented at the TAAS panel, some of which are included in this dossier and whose main approaches are captured in this introductory article. To this end, we address four thematically articulated axes, beginning with a subtitle that discusses colonial epistemology and the capture of ancestors, continuing with a reflection on the coloniality of time, reproduced through the patrimonialization and disciplining of Indigenous bodies. Subsequently, we present the historical context that gave rise to the processes of repatriation and restitution, as well as a conceptual discussion to assess their decolonizing effects. We conclude with a debate on the right of Indigenous Peoples to epistemic and ontological sovereignty in these types of processes.

A Colombian Triptych on repatriation and banished objects. Colonial reason and post-colonial dreams

2025-07-31T20:02:54+00:00

This paper reflects on objects that were exiled from their territories in the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century in Filandia (Quindío), the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Magdalena), and San Agustín (Huila), all departments of Colombia. These objects comprise the so-called Quimbaya Treasure exhibited in the Museum of the Americas in Madrid (Spain), the statues of the sculpting people of San Agustín housed in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin (Germany), and two kogui masks that have already been returned. Although the three groups are part of a triptych articulated by the idea of repatriation each of them experiences its own process. Through a documentary review their particularities are presented and considerations are raised regarding the (im)possibility of their return to Colombian territory. These cases are framed within the colonial rationale that establishes concessions with peoples who are still considered subordinate. Therefore, its resolution, or not, is articulated with the postcolonial dream of renewing colonial relations with the peoples in the global south.

Return policies and community organization. Reflections from the Atacameño Lickanantay case

2025-07-31T20:03:04+00:00

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate on return and repatriation policies, highlighting the central role of Indigenous Peoples in these contexts. To this end, it proposes a reflection on how these policies are understood and defined based on a collaborative project aimed at studying the collecting and patrimonialization of Indigenous bodies in the Atacameño Lickanantay territory, in northern Chile. It also offers a historical overview of the community organization of the Atacameño Lickanantay people, with an emphasis on collective action for the defense of ancestral places and bodies. It also describes the community work carried out within this project, focusing on its dynamics of socialization and awareness-raising. It also reflects on the complexities and disputes associated with local knowledge and the authorized discourse on heritage and addresses state appropriation of repatriation processes, underscoring the need to make Indigenous agency visible. The paper concludes with a recap of the main ideas and some final reflections.

Las Andean beliefs about ancestors, the concepts associated with them, and the reasons for their repatriation

2025-07-31T20:04:07+00:00

This paper explores Andean and Atacameño Lickanantay beliefs about their ancestors and death in order to understand the reasons why Atacameño communities seek the repatriation of their artifacts and/or ancestors along with their reburial. To this end, it presents a discussion of the concepts and ways of referring to ancestors among different Andean communities, present in ethnohistorical, archaeological, and ethnographic records. The paper also focuses on Andean beliefs, rites, and ceremonies related to ancestors and the role they play in their territories, sustaining and giving continuity to concepts about the death of ancestors, referred to as grandparents or gentiles among these communities.

Decolonial memories and narratives in the “return to the land” of Rankülche ancestors from central Argentina

2025-07-31T20:04:20+00:00

In the "return to the land" ceremony or reburial of ancient rankülche ancestors from central Argentina memories, meanings, and narratives emerged in which the distinctions between past and present faded. In addition, meanings, assessments, and practices of the place were intensified within the framework of Indigenous worldviews and what we call "acting cosmographies." The reburial site, called Chapalcó Hill, was characterized as a sacred cemetery. Decisions about how to consider and name the bodies, the method of reburial, the narrative in their own language, and the characterization of the place were proposed by the rankülche. These experiences of self-management indicate that Indigenous agencies, through their positions and practices on the ground, activate epistemic, ontological, and political interpellations by challenging previous forms of state appropriation of restitution claims and academic ways of considering and addressing these processes. All of this constitutes concrete decolonial actions that question disciplinary forms of naming bodies, stage specific ways of being and existing in and with the territory, and challenge institutional ways of managing returns and reburials of ancestors. Furthermore, they signify the entire process in terms of the coordinates of the Indigenous language which, as the backbone of self-determination, is key to promoting specific areas for the decolonization of knowledge.

Democracy for whom? Transgender people voices and experiences that dispute the sociopolitical plot of official history

2025-07-31T20:04:50+00:00

This paper analyzes the emergence of narratives constructed by transvestites and trans people regarding the resumption of democracy in Argentina. The official narrative tells us that this happened in 1983 and that the government promised to settle historical debts regarding social, economic, and political rights systematically violated during the last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983). The voices and experiences of transvestites and trans people recovered in this paper show that the democratic reopening did not represent a significant change in the daily lives of this community, as their relationship with the State continued to be marked by police persecution, raids, arrests, institutional violence, and all kinds of harassment. Their testimonies reveal that other sociohistorical milestones allowed them to circulate in public spaces without restrictions and to access certain basic rights. The progressive repeal of provincial police edicts from 1996 to 2012 and the approval of Law No. 26,743 on gender identity in 2012 inaugurated the sexual citizenship of this community. This paper shows the gaps in the official narrative and attempts to account for the untold stories that are not yet part of the Argentine social imaginary. These new narratives were systematized based on the public discourses wielded by the transvestite and trans community in Argentina.

Solemnity and consumption: paradoxes around the sacralisation of the Tablada Nacional (Uruguay) and ex ESMA (Argentina) as sites of memory

2025-07-31T20:05:10+00:00

Studies of memorial spaces created in places where clandestine detention, torture, and extermination centers operated in Argentina and Uruguay have focused on their social production. In this paper we focus on a less-explored dimension: appropriation, use, and consumption. Drawing on an anthropological perspective with an ethnographic approach we analyze conflictive situations present in these sites in which the consumption of certain goods and services is a source of competition between different actors. This analysis allows us to identify how consumption practices are moralized and some of the strategies employed and plausible arguments used to define obligatory and desirable behaviors within them. Our premise is that the values that guide the social production of these memorial spaces, associated with their commemorative and legal function regarding the enforced disappearance of persons, are actualized through forms of sacralization that reinforce the collective beliefs and moral sentiments of the groups legitimized as managers of these spaces. The data produced during fieldwork in two memorial spaces (La Tablada Nacional and the former Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada) are analyzed from theoretical perspectives that allow reflections on the link between politics, morality, and consumption in the field of memory.

Against “Vaca Muerta”. Archaeology as political action in dialogue with the Lofce Fvta Xayen (Neuquén, Argentina)

2025-07-31T20:05:31+00:00

This paper aims to share the developments of archaeology as political action in dialogue with the Lofce Fvta Xayen, a Mapuce community affected by the dynamics of colonialism and neo-extractivism (exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons) located in the rural area near the city of Añelo, Neuquén, Argentina. The paper presents the first cartographic results of a collaborative geographic-archaeological approach to the archaeological-heritage sites of interest; those places make up the identified sensitive zones (ZAPS). It also discusses the (political) practice of archaeology. The presentation of the results is intertwined with the historical ethnic-political context of Neuquén and with the contemporary dynamics of management, handling and safeguarding of the provincial archaeological heritage. We are interested in supporting the visibility of the discipline's contradictions in order to construct critical references and projects rooted in the territories and social struggles "against Vaca Muerta". The archaeological work carried out in dialogue with the Mapuche communities of Neuquén led to a reflection on the ethical and political implications of archaeological practice in contexts of conflict and violence.

Repatriation of grandparents from the Museum of the American Indian to the Atacameño Community of Chiu Chiu

2025-07-31T20:05:49+00:00

In this video, Wilson Galleguillos, an Indigenous authority from the Atacameño Community of Chiu Chiu, reflects on the repatriation process carried out by the National Museum of the American Indian in the United States, which culminated in the reburial of a "grandfather" or ancestor in the territories of the Atacameño Community of Chiu Chiu. He also shares critical insights into the role of archaeology in their territories and local beliefs regarding respect for "grandparents." The material was produced at home during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and shared with participants in the annual seminar on repatriation taught by Cressida Fforde from the Australian National University.

The return of the Rankülche ancestors

2025-07-31T20:06:00+00:00

In this video, María Inés Canuhé, lonko of the Willi Antü community of the Ranquel People, tells the story of her people. After the genocide that resulted from the militarization of the Pampas and Patagonia at the end of the 19th century, the Ranquel People began a long process of recovering their culture and identity, primarily the recovery of the bodies of ancestors taken from their resting places, in some cases by chance and in others taken as trophies to be displayed in museum showcases. The task of recovering a people required redefining rituals based on ancient worldviews; for the Ranquel people, this acquired the unique value of feeling a debt to their ancestors fulfilled by returning them to the natural cycle that should never have been interrupted. Finally, the importance of restitution policies that respect the origin of the bodies and ensure that they are returned in accordance with their own worldview is emphasized.

Making Way for Memory

2025-07-31T20:06:10+00:00

Making a Path to Memory recounts the process of returning ancestral bodies from the Warpe People in Mendoza. In the Department of Rivadavia, 30 bodies of various ages, mostly children and women, were found in a mass grave in the backyard of a house under construction. These ancestors were massacred and dumped there, possibly during the colonial era. The news of this discovery shocked the local residents, who contacted representatives and authorities of the Warpe Pelectay Community. Thus, within the framework of National Restitution Law 25,517, a process was initiated to demand the return of these bodies from the provincial Heritage Directorate and archaeologists. The path to achieving the return of ancestors to the territory in Uyata (Rivadavia) is the construction of warpe memory, and pain is transformed into an experience of love, respect, and ancestral dialogue that clarifies how grandparents are present and act through people, transmitting a message of truth and justice. This memory, constructed as part of the injustices experienced, acts as a reconfiguration of the current struggle. Despite the denial and violence of institutions, the demand for identity and territory triumphs in the hope of an ancestral reunion that will soon materialize.

Wiñoy rimu

2025-07-31T20:06:23+00:00

This text shares some Mapuche reflections on the prayer service that takes place in March in the Mapuche community of "Monguel Mamuell," located in the province of Río Negro, Argentina. This Nguillatun (prayer service), which bears the Mapuche name Wiñoy Rimu, translates as "autumn cycle" and invites us to take a "break" from reading and interpreting the signs generated by what we know as the weather during this season. In anthropological fieldwork, this prayer service invites us to unravel the meanings and concepts that acquire different connotations through other, "unhurried" dialogues between the worlds above and the one we tread upon, the world below, signs from ancestors, omens, gods, ngen, and nature. "Here we do traful" means "to each other," "next to." During the reading we can see how this concept captivates us with its teachings about reconnecting complementary links between human beings, human ancestors and non-humans, linking them, for example, through the change of color of the day in relation to even deeper meanings of lof, lofche, tuwun, pewutuwun, rehue, kuymi, trafquintun.

The indigenous word

2025-07-31T20:06:37+00:00

"Signs of the Snowfall." Mapuche (re) communalization Processes in Río Negro, Argentina

2025-07-31T20:06:46+00:00

Objects in transit, objects in dispute: The collections of Mexico's National Museum

2025-07-31T20:06:54+00:00