Decolonial Responses to the Conquest of the Desert: Challenging Official Justifications

• Autores: Serrano, Manuel Francisco
• Año de publicación: 2025
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: CONQUEST OF THE DESERT; HISTORICAL INJUSTICE; INDIGENOUS PEOPLE; COLONIALITY OF POWER
• Institución: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

This paper offers a decolonial critique of the official justifications for the Conquest of the Desert (1878–1885), through which the Argentine state violently occupied Indigenous territories in the Pampas and Patagonia. Applying a hermeneutics of suspicion, it examines legal acts, state correspondence, and academic discourse to uncover the ideological foundations of the civilising and defensive narratives. The analysis shows that these justifications were rooted not in legitimate self-defence but in colonial and racialised assumptions that dehumanised Indigenous peoples and excluded them from legal protection. The study argues that the violence was a structural manifestation of a colonial order, masquerading as national progress. By exposing these ideological underpinnings, the paper challenges dominant historical narratives and calls for a critical rethinking of the Conquest’s legacy.
Fil: Serrano, Manuel Francisco. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Ciencias Humanas. Instituto de Investigación En Ciencias Humanas y Sociales;