La memoria larga de la patrimonialización: una etnografía arqueológica de los desacuerdos cosmopolíticos en torno a la Ciudad Sagrada de Quilmes (Argentina)

This paper combines the critical view of archaeological ethnography and the epistemic openings provided by recent developments in political ontology to investigate the folds of the multiple temporalities of the patrimonialization process affecting Quilmes archaeological site and its re-signification as a Sacred City. This process goes along with the consolidation of the consensus on the multicultural and ethno-developmentalist interpretation of indigenous heritage rights at a national and international level over the last twenty years. This analytical approach seeks to recompose the processes of resistance and anti-colonial political struggle of the Diaguita people in the Calchaqui Valleys of Northwest Argentina, through three temporal frames that intertwine the past-present of the Sacred City with the self-determination and historical development of the Quilmes Indian Community. In this zone of friction, material and non-discursive, I propose the heritage/rights system as a prism that unpacks the contradictions and limits of neoliberal multiculturalism and sheds light on the cosmopolitics that shake the infrastructure of consensus, making visible the disagreements about what heritage is and who is entitled to the right and responsibility of taking care of it on behalf of future generations.