Entre el 23 y 25 de junio tuvo lugar en Albuquerque la Conferencia SPSSI 2017. En el marco del panel Psychological Research on Indigenous Communities in Latin American settings, moderado por Glenn Adams de University of Kansas, los investigadores COES-PUC, Ana Figueiredo y Roberto González presentaron sus trabajos “Historical Representations and Current Intergroup Relations Between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous People in Chile: Taking the Perspective of the Mapuche” y “Ethnic Identity development and Acculturation Preferences: Minority and Majority Youth” respectivamente.
Sobre el panel: Psychological Research on Indigenous Communities in Latin American settings
Numerous observers have noted how knowledge in hegemonic psychological science has a disproportionate basis in Euro-American settings. This internet-mediated symposium is part of an initiative by the SPSSI Internationalization Committee to facilitate exchanges with internationally based scholars that enable broader perspectives on the psychology of social issues. In particular, the presentations in this symposium draw upon research in Latin American settings to consider the topic of intergroup relations involving Indigenous communities. One consequence of the discipline’s narrow epistemic base has been the relative invisibility of Indigenous Peoples in “mainstream” theory and research. In contrast, Indigenous Peoples occupy a more prominent place in everyday life, social imagination, and scientific research in many Latin American societies. In the first half of the symposium, the presenters will use affordances of the internet to deliver brief presentations of their work. During the second half of the symposium, presenters will take questions and comments from the SPSSI conference audience. The goal of the session is to address what Latin American scholars have referred to as the coloniality of knowledge by re-thinking psychology and social issues–in this case, relations between settler colonial societies and Indigenous Peoples—from knowledge perspectives of the Global South.
Sobre la ponencia: Historical representations and current intergroup relations between indigenous and non-indigenous people in Chile: Taking the perspective of the Mapuche
Ana Figueiredo (1), Carolina Rocha (1), Marcela Cornejo (1), Laurent Licata (2)
(1) Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile
(2) Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Intergroup relations do no occur in a vacuum – they emerge within specific historical and socio-political contexts that shape perceptions and interactions between distinct social groups. For this reason, we argue that analyzing the connections between representations of the historical past and present-day intergroup relations is of utmost importance to understand current processes of social conflict and discrimination, as well as identity dynamics. This study focuses on 28 semi-structured interviews with Mapuche participants, aimed at analyzing their representations of the historical past and perceptions of the past and present-day intergroup relations between the Mapuche indigenous group and non-indigenous people in Chile. Our results indicate that, for the Mapuche, current intergroup relations are perceived and evaluated through a focus on historical processes that shaped their current disadvantaged situation within Chilean society and led to the erosion of their cultural practices and social identity. Moreover, a majority of participants emphasizes the need for reparative actions, in terms of territorial demands and identity recognition. Our results highlight how distinct representations of the past may fuel or dampen current levels of intergroup conflict and are discussed in terms of their implications for majority-minority intergroup relations following historical misdeeds.
Key-words: Mapuche; historical representations; intergroup relations; reparation
Sobre la ponencia: “Ethnic Identity development and Acculturation Preferences among Minority and Majority Youth: the role of Norms and intergroup Contact”
Roberto González / Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile
Brian Lickel, Manisha Gupta and Linda R. Tropp / University of Massachusetts Amherst Bernadette
Paula Luengo Kanacri / Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies, COES and Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome
Eduardo Mora, Pablo De Tezanos-Pinto, Christian Berger, Daniel Valdenegro, Oscar Cayul, Daniel Miranda, Patricio Saavedra and Michelle Bernardino / Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile
In this article we test a longitudinal model of the antecedents and consequences of changes in identification with an indigenous (Mapuche) category among 270 indigenous (Mapuche) and 633 non-indigenous youth (mean ages = 12.47 and 12.80 years) in Chilean school contexts over a 6-month period. Longitudinal analyses indicate that positive ingroup norms about intergroup contact as well as a high quality of intergroup contact at Time 1 predicted changes in Mapuche identification in students at Time 2, which in turn predicted changes in support for adoption of Chilean culture and maintenance of Mapuche culture at Time 2. Age and ethnic group moderated the direction of relationships between some of these variables. We discuss conceptual and policy implications of these findings in terms of how norms and contact experiences can shift ethnic minority and majority children’s identifications, and how these shifting identifications may affect their views about cultural integration of indigenous groups, particularly in cultural contexts with historical conflicts.