The role of the "indio" in social research. Reflections on a still pending political and epistemological debate

Abstract

The construction of the "indio", originated with the forced incorporation of indigenous people to the colonial economic policy and that configurated their representation as "lower beings and races" tied to who were self-legitimated as superior and civilized, forged the "indio" as an object to explore, know and investigate as otherness in the knowledge production field. As long as the social research has been instituted within these logics, I reflect on them from the historical experience of mapuche people, as a political position and a place of enunciation. I state that our position and participation in social research as "study objects", informants, collaborators or researchers, lies on social, racial and political hierarchies forged by colonialism. I also argue that any impugnation, corrosion and dismantlement of colonial relations drives us not only to an effort of (self) criticism of the ideological and epistemological hegemonic formations, but also of the social, racial and political hierarchies that underlie these relations.