El Malón Blanco (The White Horde): Racialized Violence in Argentina from Sarmiento to Macri

• In Event: Racialized violence, Borders and indigenous peoples

Abstract

In nineteenth-century Argentina, the term “el malón” named the attacks carried out by indigenous cavalries on frontier outposts of civilization. El malón, in this regard, symbolized for the national elites the violence and cruelty of indigenous savagery. Yet numerous authors in the 1800s also referred to the existence of a dialectical counterpoint to these malones: “el malón blanco” or “white malón” carried out by the army against indigenous villages, often leading to massacres. In this presentation, I draw from the figure of “El malón blanco” to examine the racialized and class-based forms of violence that have defined key moments of Argentine history, from the late 1800s to the current conservative government of President Macri. In particular, I analyze how the Argentine elites have often responded to protests by the non-white poor and indigenous people with extreme forms of violence that, despite their historical and local specificity, resemble the spatial and racial dimensions that defined the “white malones” of the past.

Author

• Gastón R Gordillo, University of British Columbia