Daniela Catrileo's archive in Chilco: language, displacement, and the Mapuche worldview

Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to the configuration of the archive in Daniela Catrileo's novel Chilco (2023), with the aim of analyzing the Mapuche archive as a space of tension, where the recovery of ancestral memory confronts the persistent marks of colonialism. Materials and methods: In our analysis, we employ, from a critical reading, the notions about the archive proposed by Jacques Derrida in his study Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression and by Achille Mbembe in “The Power of the Archive and Its Limits.” Results: The results revealed, through literary fiction, the impossibility of configuring an “authentic” Mapuche archive that is not permeated by colonial influence. Discussion: In the novel, the Mapuche writer proposes an alternative archive that attempts to challenge the selective violence of the dominant archive, and to this end articulates a duality between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic archives. Conclusions: Faced with a narrative structure that shows the representation of the archive in tension, the Mapuche archive stands as incomplete and fractured, impossible to configure as “authentic” because it is permeated by colonial structures.This paper proposes an approach to the configuration of the archive in Daniela Catrileo's novel Chilco (2023), with the aim of analyzing the Mapuche archive as a space of tension, where the recovery of ancestral memory confronts the persistent marks of colonialism. Materials and methods: In our analysis, we employ, from a critical reading, the notions about the archive proposed by Jacques Derrida in his study Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression and by Achille Mbembe in “The Power of the Archive and Its Limits.” Results: The results revealed, through literary fiction, the impossibility of configuring an “authentic” Mapuche archive that is not permeated by colonial influence. Discussion: In the novel, the Mapuche writer proposes an alternative archive that attempts to challenge the selective violence of the dominant archive, and to this end articulates a duality between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic archives. Conclusions: Faced with a narrative structure that shows the representation of the archive in tension, the Mapuche archive stands as incomplete and fractured, impossible to configure as “authentic” because it is permeated by colonial structures.This paper proposes an approach to the configuration of the archive in Daniela Catrileo's novel Chilco (2023), with the aim of analyzing the Mapuche archive as a space of tension, where the recovery of ancestral memory confronts the persistent marks of colonialism. Materials and methods: In our analysis, we employ, from a critical reading, the notions about the archive proposed by Jacques Derrida in his study Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression and by Achille Mbembe in “The Power of the Archive and Its Limits.” Results: The results revealed, through literary fiction, the impossibility of configuring an “authentic” Mapuche archive that is not permeated by colonial influence. Discussion: In the novel, the Mapuche writer proposes an alternative archive that attempts to challenge the selective violence of the dominant archive, and to this end articulates a duality between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic archives. Conclusions: Faced with a narrative structure that shows the representation of the archive in tension, the Mapuche archive stands as incomplete and fractured, impossible to configure as “authentic” because it is permeated by colonial structures.