Indigenous Policy in Salta. Limits, Ethno-political Context and Recent Struggles

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to exchange perspectives in an issue that deserves debate and reflection. In a comparative perspective with other provinces, it provides a contextual overview of indigenous policy in Argentina. From the methodological point of view, the paper shows some trends through the development of local specific cases, but in a dialogue with situations affecting all the national territory, for example, the delay in its surveying following the provisions of Law 26160. The work also focuses on the emergence of new ethno-political struggles and reconfigurations in both, highlands and lowlands. The main limitations of the indigenous policy shows its most painful aspect in the indigenous children malnutrition, related to the problem of the territories and the tree clearing, to which some court decisions refer to. We conclude that structural situations, which delay the real guarantees of indigenous collective rights, combine with the emergence of profound changes.