Este articulo procura hacer sentido de un lapso de veinte afios de trabajo de campo intermitente, buscando explorar en paralelo y de manera vinculada procesos de produc-ci6n cultural y antropol6gica. Las descripciones etnogrdficas y las discusiones te6ricas se organizan en torno a umbrales que-yendo de la ausencia al surgimiento y luego la cx>nsolidaci6n del activismo cultural Mapuche-permiten dar cuenta de procesos de organizaci6n politica sin precedentes, procesos que afectaron tanto la vida de mis interlocutores como mis "intereses acad^micos". Asi, al trazar"la recuperacion" de una prdctica ritual-el Winoy Xipantu o Ano Nuevo Mapuche-intento no simplemente analizar diferentes entextualizaciones de "lo Mapuche" (la mia induida), sino fundamentalmente explorarlas en su devenir. 1 BEGAN DOING FIELDWORK among the Mapuche in 1980, while Argentina was still experiencing the crudest of its military dictatorships. I was an undergraduate student in Anthropology, interested in mythology and ritual. Back then, the "practice approach" that would hegemonize anthropological theory in the 1980s (Ortner 1984) was far from widespread, not only within my academic milieu. Despite the existence of the Confederacidn Mapuche Neuquina or Neuquenian Mapuche Confederation (CMN), 1 the political organization of Mapuche reservations-and my own work-was at that point taking place mostly at the community level. 2 In Argentina, the Mapuche People are scattered in the southern part of the country (provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Chubut, Santa Cruz, Rio Negro and Neuque'n), as well as many cities of other provinces. Some of them live within localized settlements recognized by the state as indigenous reservations. Others are Indigenous Struggles and Contested Identities in Argentina 31 considered dispersed rural settlers. Whether they live or not in reservations, rural Mapuche mainly are sheep and goat herders, and temporary workers in estanciasoi the region, private enterprises dedicated to an extensive exploitation of cattle and sheep. The rest of the Mapuche-in numbers that are difficult to estimate but probably surpass those of the rural population-are urban dwellers. Historically, migrant Mapuche were mostly blue-collar workers; yet today many of them are unemployed. 3 Amidst such a backdrop, even in the early 1980s I was conscious that doing fieldwork in Neuquen did not guarantee a complete picture of the Mapuche people. Yet, for almost eleven years, I continued coming back to the same Mapuche community on a regular basis, while paying shorter visits to neighboring reservations of Neuquen province. I also visited the headquarters of political organizations of young urban Mapuche that started arising by the mid-1980s, after the recovery of the democratic system in 1983. By 1991,1 was ready to move to the United States to begin graduate school. I decided then to do one last fieldwork before a lengthy absence. While in a Mapuche rural community of Neuquen province, I was invited by its leaders to escort them to a meeting in Junin de ...