Contenido: Mario Tebes (1927-2009) is a bilingual Quichua-Spanish writer born in the northern extreme of Figueroa department, Santiago del Estero (Argentina). Towards the end of his life, he published his memoir Castañumanta Yuyayniy (My memory of El Castaño, 2009), the first prose “author” work in Quichua language. In Santiago del Estero’s Mesopotamia and in Buenos Aires conurbation there are portions of population that remain bilingual, with a complex socio-historical process of asymmetries within the order of uses and meanings concerning Quichua and Spanish. Our hypothesis is that Castañumanta does not deal with a folklore-related rescue of the Quichua, but with the fact that those experiences are the reconstruction of evidences of a social framework that supports that language. Tebes’s discursive strategies and his singular trajectory imply an ought-to-be (how to write in) Quichua, with implicit assumptions on other bilingual (other “quichuistas”) writers. This analysis enables the realization about evidence of an intense identity position.

Contenido: El presente artículo analiza las pautas de conducta vinculadas a la distribución espacial de las diferentes comunidades de matacos establecidas alrededor de Las Lomitas (Pcia. de Formosa, Argentina). También se refiere al origen y procedencia de las mismas, haciendo mención de algunos episodios que influyeron en la ubicación actual de los aborígenes de la región, como fueron la construcción del ferrocarril Belgrano, la consolidación de Las Lomitas, 1a creación de la estancia “La Fidelidad" y la reducción de la Colonia “Francisco Javier Muñiz".

Contenido: In this article we propose to address the statistical field of criminal policy, in general, and that of public security, in particular. In this approach, we will focus on characterizing the statistical production linked to a preventive security model with specific guidelines of the democratic security that had a strong impact in the province of Buenos Aires in the year 2009. Referring to the Party of General Pueyrredón as an example, the article seeks to unravel the shortcomings of the statistics linked to this model and its main challenges, in the search of the lines of reflection about the necessary company to generate more and better statistical production.

Contenido: The analysis of surnames in marriages has been extensively used to study the genetic structure of populations. In this paper we analyze the population structure of the Calamuchita Valley (Province of Córdoba, Argentina) during the first half of the 20th century using the Repeated Pairs (RP) method. The sample included all registered marriages (N=1105) during the period 1896-1950. A RP value three times higher than expected at random was observed. The information about the occupation of the spouses reveals that the subdivision in the population can be explained mainly by preferential marriages by socio-economic class. Seventy-three percent of all marriages were between spouses of the same group and only 27% were mixed marriages. There is no a clear temporal trend, but there is a gender bias, with a greater social upward mobility among men.

Contenido: En la región cordillerana de Norpatagonia (en la provincia de Neuquén) se vienen dando crecientes conflictos territoriales protagonizados por el pueblo indígena mapuche, como resultado de la expansión turística, que posee una importancia central en esta zona. En el presente trabajo nos proponemos como objetivo analizar desde la óptica de la Antropología Social estas dinámicas, atendiendo a los diversos factores causales y a la vez, a la gran diversidad de situaciones dentro de este fenómeno. Se busca sistematizar estos procesos a partir de una perspectiva comparativa que reúne la experiencia de nuestro trabajo en los departamentos de Aluminé, Huiliches, Lácar y Los Lagos.

Contenido: In 1950, Oswald Menghin and Marcelo Bórmida published  the results of their first investigations in the Pampean region, in the Gruta del Oro in the hill system of Tandilia in the journal Runa. Based on very few lithic artifacts and making long-distance paleoclimate correlations, they proposed the existence at around 5000 BC of an epiprotolithic cultural complex of inferior hunters which they called Tandilense. This article gave rise to a whole series of archaeological investigations in the region strongly aligned with the Austro-German historical-cultural paradigm. The article was the foundation stone of a theoretical current that would dominate Pampean Archaeology for the next thirty years. This essay summarizes and discusses the findings and interpretations of Menghin and Bórmida on the materials of the Gruta del Oro and analyzes the theoretical and political context to explain why the model proposed by Menghin and Bórmida was dominant until the 1980s.

Contenido: The following work arises from a dialogue with the work of Han Vermeulen in relation to the origins of anthropology. For this author, the origin of ethnology, as one of the roots of sociocultural anthropology, is the product of a discipline that had reached its maturity at the end of the 18th century, emerging from field work carried out in Russia and the North. from Asia, mainly by scholars from the University of Göttingen. The thesis proposed by Vermeulen points to a historical review of the origins of anthropology, opposing the traditional and more widespread vision, which gave birth to the discipline towards the end of the 19th century with the conformation of the evolutionary paradigm. This article takes a tour of this work and presents some critical notes on the arguments and conclusions defended by the author. It also highlights the value of this type of reflections to have a greater understanding of the anthropological discipline as a historical product and the recognition of peripheral disciplinary traditions that are often not recognized in canonical traditions.  

Contenido: We evaluate different skull subregions to detect if changes in food consistency have an effect on size and shape variation. Three population economic transitions and three non-transitional populations were analyzed. Ninety 3D landmark coordinates were digitized in a sample of 459 skulls and analyzed using geometric morphometry. Additionally, the bite force was estimated for each group. Our results indicate size differences between transitions and cranial regions. The shape changes are concentrated in the  temporal and masseter muscles insertion, which show an anteroposterior lengthening in the hard diet groups in relation to the soft diet groups. Other important changes occur in the zygomatic arch, which is wider in the hard diet groups. The bite force is overall higher in the groups representing the toughest diets.

Contenido: In this article, I examine the debris that modernist projects leave in spaceand the ways in which these vestiges are interpreted, generations later, bypeople haunted by the long-term reverberations of their ruination. Drawing on theories of negativity, I look at local memories woven around these spatial sedimentations with the aim of examining the interpenetration of space, history, decline, and subjectivity. My narrative focuses on the remains of steamships that the attempts to turn the Bermejo River into a commercial fluvial route left around the town of Rivadavia in the Gran Chaco region of northern Argentina. In the 1860s and 1870s, businessmen and officials hailed the navigation of Bermejo as a project that would bring progress and prosperity to a savage region under the control of indigenous groups. Shortly thereafter, the Bermejo shifted its course, the navigation schemes collapsed, and Rivadavia entered a period of decline from which it never fully recovered. In this article, I examine how local views of the debris of ships and of a monument erected to commemorate them evoke multiple absences, chief among them that of the progress that the ships were expected to bring to the Chaco.

Contenido: Este artículo se propone abordar los múltiples significados que posee el dinero transferido a partir de los programas sociales de transferencias monetarias. Para tal fin, abordaremos a los diferentes actores sociales involucrados en los circuitos de las políticas de entrega de dinero: a) analizaremos los conocimientos que movilizan los saberes expertos en el diseño de las políticas públicas para otorgar cierto significado al dinero transferido y, b) nos aproximaremos a una experiencia de abordaje etnográfico en torno a la aplicación de un programa social en la escala local, para analizar las contiendas de significados existentes entre los actores locales estatales involucrados en su implementación y los hogares titulares de derechos. Dicho recorrido nos permitirá observar aquello que hemos denominado como la producción social del dinero de las transferencias monetarias: significados del dinero producidos a partir de la relación entre los múltiples actores involucrados, sus saberes y prácticas diversas.

Contenido: Technoscience has been associated with significant risks to the environment and human health. In turn, these risks have been attributed to a scientific ignorance about the damages that can be generated by technoscience. In this paper we argue that, instead of being associated with a non-knowledge, another source of risks can come from a simplification of complex elements of scientific knowledge. Thus, considering the case of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for agricultural use, our analysis compares conceptualizations of biotechnology with the knowledge of molecular disciplinary genetics. For this purpose, specialized bibliography of both areas of knowledge is examined. Our results show that the knowledge associated with GMOs presents a linear and deterministic vision compared to the complexity present in contemporary molecular genetics. Unforeseen complexity may be associated with damage to the environment and populations.

Contenido: The present article examines the use of the ax in a “puestera” family in the Alberdi Department, located in the northeast of Santiago del Estero, Argentina. I analyze a series of tasks in which the use of this tool makes it possible to craft different artifacts, destined to contain domestic livestock, or for commercial exchange. I focus on Ingold's concept of task. Through this concept the relations between humans and non-humans acquire a vivid perspective. Allows me to focus dynamically on the changing relationships in which the ax is inserted, putting the focus on two analytical levels. First, the communities of practice that bring together male members of the family group, based on certain actively negotiated projects. Second, the practical-perceptual and affective skills that the actors develop by actively relating to an environment made up of multiple non-human actants.

Contenido: En este artículo analizaremos las condiciones de posibilidad del ejercicio de la violencia de Estado que vivieron tanto soldados conscriptos como pobladores del “teatro de operaciones”, durante el Operativo Independencia (Tucumán, 1975-1977). Argumentaremos que esas experiencias estuvieron marcadas por la vigencia del estado de excepción, que permitía la suspensión de las garantías constitucionales en el sur tucumano y habilitaba la producción de seres matables, sometidos al poder soberano de vida y muerte, y a formas de maltrato por parte de las autoridades militares. En esta línea de análisis, plantearemos que reconstruir esa experiencia implica estudiar dos tramas superpuestas: la de la lógica burocrática del servicio militar obligatorio (basada en el desprecio hacia la vida de los soldados “bajo bandera”) y la de la represión política desplegada en el sur tucumano, de carácter ilegal y clandestino.

Contenido: A partir de un ejemplo etnográfico concreto situado entre los Karitiana (pueblo indígena de lengua Tupi-Arikém en el estado de Rondônia, sudoeste de la Amazonía brasileña), este artículo discute algunas de las razones por las cuales la introducción de la crianza de animales en gran escala entre las sociedades nativas de las tierras bajas sudamericanas han fracasado y obtuvieron, en el mejor de los casos, éxitos relativos. Construida como parte importante de las políticas públicas oficialmente dedicadas a los pueblos indígenas desde el inicio del siglo XX, la crianza de animales se basa en una serie de presupuestos incompatibles con las formas amerindias de relación con los seres no humanos. Tales divergencias explican el fracaso de los múltiples intentos de implementación de la ganadería, piscicultura o avicultura (entre otras) en aldeas indígenas amazónicas, sugiriendo que tales actividades no parecen constituir buenas alternativas para la sostenibilidad económica de esas poblaciones.

Contenido: This article tries to make a brief comparison between the Social Anthropology carried out in Argentina and México between 1960 and 1990, approximately, with the purpose of showing what  the direction and relevance of the research and studies on indigenous peoples was during those years, as well as to position the ethnographic method within Anthropology.

Contenido: Based on the respective experiences of academic exchange in Rio de Janeiro in which the authors participated, this work reconstructs common aspects of their research trajectories in that city by carrying out a comparative exercise with their research with young boys and girls from working-class neighborhoods and street vendors from the city of Buenos Aires. This analysis focuses, first of all, on the implications of the enrollment of ethnographic work, investigating the relationships built on the basis of (dis)trust upon the insertion of the anthropologists in the different social environments. Secondly, the analysis focuses on the particularities acquired by ethnographic research in social contexts crossed by different forms and manifestations of violence(s), trying to deconstruct the meanings (local and proper) associated with it, in order to approach a problematization of the native use of this category that would allow the outlining of some theoretical generalizations.

Contenido: This work seeks to reflect on the actions of a social group dedicated to the generation of housing projects in a middle Buenos Aires city of Argentina, based on considering the ideas of the State that are embodied in discourses, practices, relationships and concepts of social actors with which the ethnographic research was carried out. In this sense, thinking about the State in its multiple presences is a central analytical key to account for the generation of social relations and assets that not only allowed the local level to go beyond, but also enabled greater degrees of proximity and link with various officials and state agencies. But in addition, these aspects were productive in political terms to project actions in housing matters, at the same time that they operated in the legitimation and recognition of the group in terms of the processes of social and political production of the habitat.

Contenido: From a perspective based on the anthropology of experience, this paper is an ethnographic exploration of the practice of walking among inhabitants of a rural area of the Quebrada de Humahuaca (residents of a local community and workers native of the same geographical area, who move within it for work purposes) as part of their daily activities. It analyzes various aspects of the knowledge they resort to while traveling through the landscape, based on intersubjectivity relations that they establish with the different elements within it. Research methodology consisted of taking part of the usual treks throughout the course of the day. In addition, open interviews were held in order to collect data about their experiences of walking the landscape.

Contenido: This article examines the semantic components that the stone have in Andean societies. Based on ethnohistorical, linguistic and ethnographic background, we discuss the perception of the functions and meanings that the stone had to indigenous groups, according to cosmological and cultural contexts in which stone element is inserted in both the symbols as in the ceremonial display during the Tawantinsuyu.

Contenido: For several decades, biological anthropology has employed different molecular markers in population research. Since 1990 different techniques in molecular biology have been developed allowing preserved DNA extraction and its typification in different samples from museums and archaeological sites. Ancient DNA studies related to archaeological issues are now included in the field of Archaeogenetics. In this work we present some of ancient DNA applications in archaeology. We also discuss advantages and limitations for this kind of research and its relationship with ethic and legal norms.

Contenido: The inference of activities in past societies is one of the great challenges of bioarchaeology. Since the beginning of the 20th century, interpretations of mechanical stress have been based on bone morphological traits. However, despite theoretical and methodological advances in their approach, their inferences have not been free of criticism. This paper aims to review the theoretical and methodological approaches to infer past activities from general bone morphology and entheseal changes in particular. This review is focused on medical and biological contributions to bioarchaeological studies, the changes in the approach to the subject, their criticisms and solutions.

Contenido: The proposal to implement intercultural-bilingual education for schools in indigenous contexts has been preserved in the curriculum and official norms, but public education has always been an arena of political and ideological struggles, thus during the first twenty years of this century, the Changes and struggles in the government have led to five reforms in the basic education system. Consequently, the interpretations and actions to implement intercultural and bilingual education have been different. In this article, I present the case of the subject of indigenous language and culture in the state of Tabasco in southeastern Mexico to show how the use of the term interculturality in the educational reforms that have been generated since 2000 to date have led to different political and educational processes.

Contenido: In human societies around the world there are several ways to classify the ancestors and descendants of each person. Family relationships are constructed during the life of each individual, but also have a biological basis that allows defining and reconstructing lineages.We have characterized the genetic profile of the Azampay community in Catamarca through molecular analysis techniques. The objective was to identify the American and Non American components in this population, to reconstruct the migration history and compare the molecular lineages with genealogies based on official records and oral history.Among male haplogroups, 88 % have foreign origin, while 100% of the female ancestors are Native Americans. Seasonal labor migration is an established economic strategy, during which the children are raised by their grandparents. This represents the way of introducing new molecular lineages, but it does not always register a correlation in the number of surnames.