Vibrant wood. Chané masks and trajectories of matter

Authors

  • Cecilia Benedetti National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), Institute of Anthropological Sciences, University of Buenos Aires (ICA-UBA).

Abstract

Since the early decades of the 20th century, certain products of Indigenous peoples have been defined as handicrafts in Latin America. They circulate through various commercial channels, which have fostered emotional attachments to them as durable objects that must remain intact over time (Benedetti, 2025). Is it possible to consider artisanal production outside the notion of permanence, to follow trajectories of change and transformation (rather than halt them), to seek meaning in transition, transcendence, and uncertainty (DeSilvey, 2017)? This material proposes a reflection on these questions based on the wooden masks made from the palo borracho or yuchán tree by the Chané people.

Author Biography

Cecilia Benedetti, National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), Institute of Anthropological Sciences, University of Buenos Aires (ICA-UBA).

She holds a PhD in Anthropological Sciences from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Buenos Aires. She is an Independent Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and an Adjunct Professor in the Anthropological Sciences Department at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and in the Postgraduate Program of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the same university. Her research interests focus on heritage, diversity, sustainable development, identity and economic dynamics of cultural practices, Indigenous peoples, and multicultural policies. She has published a book and numerous chapters and articles in national and international academic journals on these topics. She is a member of the Network for Information and Discussion on Archaeology and Heritage (RIDAP).

References

Benedetti, Cecilia (2025). Producción artesanal indígena: un ensayo sobre la biografía de la materia. Reflexiones desde el norte argentino. Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación, Ensayos [online], 253, 143-154. https://dx.doi.org/10.18682/cdc.vi253.12152.

Bennet, Jane (2022). Materia vibrante. Una ecología política de las cosas. Colección: Futuros próximos.

DeSilvey, Caitlin (2017). Curated decay: heritage beyond saving. University of Minnesota Press.

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2026-01-31

How to Cite

Benedetti, C. (2026). Vibrant wood. Chané masks and trajectories of matter. Memorias Disidentes. Revista De Estudios críticos Del Patrimonio, Archivos Y Memorias, 3(5), 243–246. Retrieved from https://ojs.unsj.edu.ar/index.php/Mdis/article/view/1449

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 5 (2026): Handicrafts. Sensitive art from the margins

Section

Lenguajes Instituyentes

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Cecilia Benedetti

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

  • ícono licencia by-nc-sa


  • The authors retain the rights of autxr and assign to the journal the right to first publication of the work, registered under the Creative Commons attribution license, which allows third parties to use what is published as long as they mention the authorship of the work and the first publication in this journal.

  • Authors may make other independent and additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the article published in this journal (for example, including it in an institutional repository) as long as they clearly indicate that the work was first published in this journal.

  • The authors grant any third party the right to share and use the article (for non-commercial purposes), provided that the original authors and the citation of the version published in this journal are identified.