STEREOTYPES ABOUT MAPUCHE IN THE LINGUISTIC REVITALIZATION PROCESS

Abstract

From the review of the first four colloquia about ‘mapuche language‘s teaching and learning‘(2003, 2005, 2006 y 2009) made in Universidad de la Frontera, and collected in texts Nütxamtuwün kimeltuwün ka chillkatuwün mapuchezugun mew (Painequeo, 2011 & Painequeo 2012, unpublished), Stereotypes and prejudgements towards the mapuche community, their language and culture are analyzed, in context of deploying instances for language revival, either particular or in the framework of  the Intercultural Bilingual Education Program (PEIB) from MINEDUC. To achieve it had to be analyzed testimony from tradicional educators who participate in colloquia, mapuche performers involved in those language and culture revival instances for mapuzungun in the Araucanía región and theme specialized literature. Our observations show the persistence of prejudment and steoreotipes from ‘chilean society‘ towards mapuche and their culture, inherited attitudes from the beginning between both‘s relationship, and that had come up in a principally negative way for them. Towards observed stereotypes and biases, we establish the emerge of new stereotypes during the nineties and the beginning of the year two thousand. Otherside, we reveal different testimonies that show that the instances of revitalization of the language become spaces that allow the overcoming of some of these prejudices, projecting, then, as spaces of high value for the construction of tolerance, the implementation of interculturality and the improvement of the Mapuche-Chilean relationship.