Pushing the limits to participation in Argentina’s protected areas

Abstract

This article analyzes the efforts to create and consolidate spaces for indigenous participation within a protected area in Argentina. It explores the significance of co-management in the indigenous Mapuche people’s struggles for autonomy over the decisions made within their ancestral territories. Co-management represents an important step towards institutional transformation in the relationship between park administration and people, but it is conditioned by the wider structures of domination and difference in settler colonial societies. The provincial Mapuche organization and community authorities strategize to push the limits to participation further by turning to gobernanza, literally governance, thereby moving from the management of specific resources to the governance of a set of broader territorial relationships.