Tradición y modernidad: Vida cotidiana en la Araucanía (1900-1935)

Abstract

This article analyzes the contradiction caused by the clash between tradition and modernity in the frontier region of Araucanía once the so-called "Pacification" was completed. Through a detailed revision of judiciary archives, periodicals and official sources, the analysis focuses on those features of daily life that show evidence of the enormous and profound cultural, economic, social and political gap that separated mapuche and mestizos (half breeds), from entrepreneurs, colonists and civil servants who begun to populate the region when the Chilean State consolidated its presence and new institutions were incorporated to the area. Conceived as a transitional period, it reviews those ordinary events that shaped both, the intimate weave of every day life, as well as the structural framework that marks the character and behaviour of men in the long run.