Wright la colonizacion del espacio, la palabra y el cuerpo en el chaco

imagen de una articulo sobre lituratura de los desiertos


this commentary goes with some of my own added ideas. probably this essay could be turned into a much longer work, but guides what i could be doing with archival work and what type of events i can be looking for.


The brief but densely interesting paper explores the effect of the colonization of the chaco in the constitution of new types of order for chaquenian indigenous societies. Specifically the constitution of a new space, regime of language and body. The transition to a new spatiality only happened after the highly aggressive military campaigns that took control of the territories of the last indigenous society with a political and social autonomy. The military invasion demonstrated the defeat of previous the missionary and state attempts that combined both military "entradas" (advances) and the settlement of mission stations. Both were attempts of domesticating the savage nature of both indigenous and space.

With the consolidation of the state there was a new interest in gaining control over the land and territories in order to turn the chaco into a productive region for capitalist economy. The transformation of the space started by a delimitation of the spaces of colonization form the space of "the bush" a generic category implying a moral geography (my words) of savagism. The colonization efforts was then the transformation of this inhuman space into civilization and humanity as he quotes form the prefect of the Chaco -franciscan- Misions (fray Pedro María Pelichi) "no bautizaba sino a los que se hallaban en peligro de muerte, por que bien sabía que es preciso esperar que los salvages se hagan primero hombres para que sean despues verdaderos cristianos". It is though toil,that the Franciscans considered this can be achieved. The bush however remains as a space that is constantly threatening missionary efforts to fail.

The space of the missions and state reductions functioned as civilizatory islands, beyond which savagism and unruliness still prevailed. (as other authors show) Every time the indigenous live the missions, the habits that the priest were able to inculcate among them were lost, the missionaries complain that when returning form the bush the indigenous kept on behaving in their usual uncivilized manner still living "desnudos y de la caza" (naked and hunting and gathering) . (In other work Wright analyzes the contemporary contrasts among the indigenous of Tacaglé Mission between labour and hunting-gathering as a result of the incorporation of the missionary logic. In my ba thesis i analyze how this category is reappropriated among the Tobas of the lote who collapses the terms and claim that "marisca es trabajo") Thus space and body were connected in both its unruliness and as "site of operation" of the civilizatory power. Work more than the producton of economic goods was in this case the production of the human, a mean of inscribing a human habit to this non yet humans.

Finally even he does not quote Mignolo, he makes a point very close to his, by pointing to how the indigenous were also subjugated by the legitimation of a single regime of representation, which is spanish and the written language of bureaucracy. Interestingly he brings as an example the need of indigenous of carrying the documents of good conduct while traveling (generally to or form temporary work locations). This papers were written by any authority, from priests to state officials, to employers in the rural industries. This papers were thus showed to any white person meeting in their way as a proof of being good indians, already civilized and with no intention of attack. The indians were otherwise "always already" dangerous, something that legitimated killing non identified ones. (gordillo calls this part of what constituted a id paper fetishism among he analyzes in a recent article, he show how even with the papers some indigenous groups circulating were killed). this case is interesting for me as shows the early need of control over movement as another dimension of the colonization of chaco.