Sarana Stein

Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Fellow in the Humanities

20072008 Forum on Origins

Sarana Stein

Anthropology, Comparative Literature

College '09

Rewriting Origins: Indigenous Authors, Ethno-regenesis and the Rise of Contemporary Aboriginal Identity in Argentina

While Argentina’s cultural narratives have often characterized indigenous peoples as phantoms of the past, recent decades have seen aboriginal individuals step forward to advocate distinct, contemporary identities. Using ethnographic accounts, political manifestos, autobiographies and poetry, this project probes the origins from which the present moment of indigenous reemergence, social organization and mobilization of identity has occurred, with specific interest in the key players who have taken into their hands the articulation of identity, countering past projections of indigenousness and questions of authenticity.In a globalizing world, how does indigenous identity maintain relevance, and how might the rise of transnational indigenous organizations complicate its fashioning? While Origin Mythologies have been bequeathed throughout generations, how do recently-constructed narratives portray the origin of future indigenism in Latin America?