Territory Guarani
Spring 2015 | Volume XIV, Number 3
Table of Contents
Editor’s Letter →
by June Carolyn Erlick
First Take
First Take: Shaping the Guarani Territory
English + Español
The stretch of land in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay originally occupied by the Guarani is an extended region in the heart of the River Plate basin, whose…
First Take: Territories and Territories The Shifting Guarani Space
English + Español
Territory is one of those useful words with relatively different meanings—but not different enough to prevent us from using it in diverse circumstances without…
Shaping Territories
Paraguay: Un país en una lengua misteriosa y singular
English + Español
If you arrived in a country where almost 90% of the inhabitants speak Guarani, an official and national language along with Spanish but do not identify themselves as “Indian” or aboriginal…
The Many Meanings of Yerba Mate
I first encountered yerba mate as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Paraguay. Everywhere I went, and at all times of the day, I saw small groups of people…
Along Yvyrupa’s Paths
English + Español
I started living with the Guarani in September 1978, after the inhabitants of a small village on the outskirts of São Paulo built a modest wooden room as their own school and had asked the…
Water and Environment
The Invention of the Guarani Aquifer System
On October 19, 1979, the presidents of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay gathered in Asunción to sign an agreement setting general principles for the utilization of…
The Guarani and the Iguaçu National Park
In September 2005, a group of 55 Guarani Indians occupied a forested section of the Iguaçu National Park in the state of Paraná in southern Brazil. You may…
Beyond the Dam
English + Español
The construction of the immense Yacyretá dam took place on a territory with a very powerful story. The transformation of the society and the environment of the place where it was built did…
Yacyretá
English + Español
A hydroelectric plant is about much more than water and energy. It is about community and environment, urban planning and resource development. It is…
Y marane’ÿ rekávo
English + Español
It is not only the earth that is filled with impurities. So is the water. Lifeless waters extend throughout the earth, and not only on its surface. Like cholesterol-clogged…
Arts, Language and Culture
A Country of Music and Poetry The View from Paraguay
English + Español
As a Paraguayan singer and composer, I had the privilege of performing once with Mercedes Sosa in Asunción. When I visited her at a later date in Buenos …
Animating Peripheries
English + Español
The Museo del Barro in Asunción immerses the visitor in a collection of images and objects, often in a somewhat disordered fashion, not all categorized or…
Guarani in Film
English + Español
The first film spoken in Guarani I ever saw was from the United States. It was the movie Jesus (1979), co-directed by Peter Skyes and John Krish, dubbed into…
Chamamé for Dummies
English + Español
There is a traditional Andalusian dance, the vito, inspired by the “St. Vitus dance,” a name given to Huntington’s disease for centuries. Symptoms of this disease…
History: Jesuits and Beyond
Jesuit Reflections on their Overseas Missions
When you think of Jesuits in their missions around the world, you—the casual reader—might not think of Plato or ancient Greek authors. Yet two of these…
Transformed Worlds
In 1610, a small group of Jesuits began what would become known as one of the largest indigenous evangelism experiences in colonial America. The effort began…
Guaranis and Jesuits
The territory we currently identify as “Guarani” is presently divided between Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Although this partition of a community…
Total War in Indigenous Territories
English + Español
Fue esa la primera guerra total en suelo americano, tanto en el sentido técnico de E. Ludendorff –una completa subordinación de la política a la guerra, en el…
Imagining Guaranis and Jesuits
English + Español
Beginning in 1610, Jesuits founded a series of towns for indigenous peoples in the southern region of America. These towns, known as “missions” or…
Building Bridges
The Road Towards Universal Coverage in Mexico
English + Español
Mexico has taken gigantic steps towards universal health coverage in the last decade. In 2012, a national program called Popular Insurance came into effect…
History and Myth, in memoriam
by Milda Rivarola
Book Talk
Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of New Architecture
Growing up in the midst of the Irvine Company’s unimaginative southern California, without exposure to anything other than strip malls and suburban…
Doña Lucía: La Biografía no Autorizada
The day Lucía Hiriart returned to her native Chile from Ecuador in 1959 was not a happy one. With five young children in tow, she and her husband Augusto…
Cosmopolitan Desires
In January 2015, shortly after terrorist attacks in Paris, the slogan “Je suis Charlie” began to circulate on Twitter and to appear on demonstrators’ signs in Paris and…