Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes the changes in the racial discourses of Argentinean and Chilean authorities regarding Patagonia inhabitants between the 1840s and the 1920s, as well as the reconfiguration of popular identities through lines of class, origin, occupation and time of arrival.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the relation between settler colonialism and indigenous and migrant nomadism proposing that the occupation of southern Patagonia by Argentina and Chile produced a complex racial/ethnic hierarchy out of previous binarisms. In the States' languages, and as a result of their own erratic immigration and land policies, imbricated social relations replaced the initial opposition between civilization and barbarism. National and regional origin, class and occupation as well as time of residence combined for producing shifting identities within workers, authorities and entrepreneurs by 1910. Based on extensive research on Argentinean and Chilean administrative and judiciary sources, this paper proposes to understand racism and ethnicity as resulting out of international, national and regional power relations. In southern Patagonia by the end of the period, regional identity emerged out of a multinational immigration where the "sence of place" (Wade) and occupation replaced regional or national origin as the main marker. The paper is organized in three sections: 1) Politics of racial immigration; 2) Nomadism and settlement; 3) Class, "Race" and Region.