Resumen

GNECCO, Cristóbal. ENLARGEMENT OF THE BATTLE FIELD. Textos Antropológicos [online]. 2005, vol.15, n.2, pp. 183-195. ISSN 1025-3181.

The conflict between archaeologists and indigenous peoples for the control ofnative burials is the tip of the iceberg ofa wider struggle for self-determination, in which historical narratives play a basic role. That conflict occurs world wide and in countries as distant and different as New Zealand and Chile, the United States and Canada, but characterized by a politically empowered indigenous population, for which a renewed (if not resignified) relationship with their pasts is central; such an empowerment questions the traditional role of archeology in the construction ofhegemonic history and produces an unavoidable conflict, less related to the past than to the present and future. However, it has not yet happened in many other countries with similar situations, in which its activation may soon happen. This paper reflects about such a problematic relationship, arguing that is deployment is a starting point for a negotiation that involves more general aspects like the nature of the social bond in post-national countries, multiculturalism, and the role ofhistorical meaning in the constitution of contemporary identities