Abstract

The history of the Mapuche people evolved based on struggles against colonial spoliation, in this context, Mapuche women have experienced severe and particular experiences of violence caused by the intersection of different systems of oppression. This study seeks to understand the memories of Mapuche women through an ethnographic work with an intersectional gender perspective, which included in-depth interviews and discussions with women from the Metropolitan, Biobío, La Araucanía, and Los Ríos regions. Results raise awareness over the familial and collective ruptures caused by diaspora processes in the second half of the 19th century and during the Chilean civic-military dictatorship (1973-1990). However, the study also reveals resistance strategies that these women have displayed collectively. Since they have been able to create, from their positioning and conditions, and according to their experiences on their socio-historical contexts, their own ways of confronting colonial, patriarchal, and classist violence, drawing on their Mapuche knowledge, despite the tensions within their lof -territories with their own sociopolitical and spiritual organization-social organizations, and families.