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Audiences and contexts: the story of Benetton v. the Mapuches
by Claudia Briones and Ana Ramos
The land conflict between Benetton and the Mapuche people started in the Argentinean Patagonia with the eviction of a Mapuche family and the consequent opening of a legal case in which they were sued for having allegedly seized private property. In a context where judicial confrontations between landowners and indigenous peoples and the criminalization of social demands now appear to be frequent, this particular case has transcended the level of social injustice in which other indigenous conflicts are usually circumscribed. In the making of the legal file the facts were carefully selected. Simultaneously, these facts also became an integral part of the stories that circulated in the regional, national, and international media. By the day of the oral trial, May 26 2004, the case had already gained a wide and heterogeneous audience.
Starting with these facts, this paper attempts to reveal the complex fabric that configured this case's stagings and to look at the representations that were given to the conflict, representations that captured the attention of vast sectors of the Argentinean society, giving the case a visibility and support that previous conflicts did not have or achieve. In short, we are interested in exploring the relationship between performances, audiences, and contexts in order to identify some of the social issues that, nowadays, have the power to make people come together or to break them apart.
Claudia Briones – Universidad de Buenos Aires / CONICET
Ana Ramos – Universidad de Buenos Aires / CONICET
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