Identidades étnicas en Tarapacá a inicios del siglo XXI

The author has done research on the processes of formation of ethnic identities in the region of Tarapacá, in northern Chile. She argues that the indigenous people in Tarapacá have recently tried to shake off the stigma of «Indianness» by using elements of modernity in asserting their ethnic identity. Beyond other signs for identity-building, they have resorted to ethnicity as they strive to be included in a historically excluding system. This strategy depends upon defining and reproducing the symbolic borders with the q'ara, the Aymara category for the «other»: he or she who does not descend from the «Inca.» For them the «Inca» represents the past, a mythical space-time and a system of norms and values that serves as a guide for the practices of the present. Yet this process is conflictive and heterogeneous, since this indigenous people are diverse in terms of class, gender and degree of acculturation.