An ethnography on fractals

The Museum, the School and the Community: Representations of the past and science in Valcheta, Río Negro, Argentina

Abstract

This article develops the results of the Final Thesis of the Bachelor's Degree in Anthropology at the National University of Córdoba, Argentina. In this thesis we examine, through an ethnographic work, the practices and discourses on local history in three spaces in the town of Valcheta, Río Negro, Argentina: in the Provincial Museum "María Inés Kopp", in the Secondary School Nº 87 and in the local Mapuche-Tehuelche indigenous community or Lof Che Nehuen Co. 
In these contexts, the past is referred to in the stories about the local indigenous groups and the military campaigns, both the one led by Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1833 and the one led by Julio Argentino Roca in 1879, which crossed Valcheta. In this framework, discourses and archives emerge about an indigenous concentration camp established during the last campaign, where Mapuche and Mapuche-Tehuelche were confined in very poor living conditions. The past is projected in material objects that are understood by the scientific community as archaeological and by the indigenous community as pieces that are part of their history.