Dr' Mara Eugenia Merino Chief researcher

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Prejudice and Discrimination against Mapuches in
Chile and their Psychosocial Effects. A
Discursive Study.Fondecyt three-year Research
Grants 2001-2003,2005-2007, Chile.

• Dr. María Eugenia MerinoChief researcher
• mmerino_at_uct.cl
• Universidad Católica at Temuco
• Chile

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The purpose of this communication

• To contribute to the discussion about the
  relevance of discursive perspectives to
  researching discrimination/racism in modern
  society and find ways for reducing it.

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The Problem

• Does the Chilean population discriminate against
  Mapuches?
• How is it manifested?
• Are Mapuches aware of being discriminated
  against?
• What types of discrimination do they perceive?
• What are the psychosocial effects of
  discrimination in Mapuches?

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Brief historical background

• Mapuches are the indigenous group that inhabits
  Argentine and Chile. Some anthropological
  theories link them to Asian ancestors, though it
  has not been proved yet.
• Its population in Chile today is above 1 million
  out of 16 million of the total Chilean population
  (Indigenous Population Census, 2004).

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The first study

• Objectives
• Reveal the presence of prejudice and
  discrimination within the Chilean population.
• 2. Describe how they are manifested in everyday
  discourse about Mapuches

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Ethnic prejudice and discrimination within the
Chilean population

• A critical discourse analysis of Chileans
  everyday discourse about Mapuches was made on a
  sample of 300 non-Mapuche men and women
  representative of upper, middle and lower
  socio-economic status and of three age groups
  young adults, adults and senior adults from two
  larger cities with large indigenous population
  Temuco and the capital city Santiago.

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Findings

• There is significant presence of prejudices and
  stereotypes in the oral discourse of Chilean
  inhabitants (found in over 80 of the sample).
• For further detail, refer to
• Merino,M., Mellor, J., Saiz, J., Quilaqueo D.
  Perceived discrimination amongst the indigenous
  Mapuche people in Chile some comparisons with
  Australia. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 2008.
• Merino,M.,Pilleux, M.,Quilaqueo,D., San Martin,
  B. Discursive Racism in ChileThe mapuche case in
  Racism and Discourse in Latin America. Teun Van
  Dijk (Coord.). Rowman Littlefield Publishers,
  Inc., In press. 2009.

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How is it manifested?

• By means of three broad categories
• Racism
• Paternalism
• 3. The Recognition paradox

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1. Racism

• It deals with three main attributions
• (a) Incapability to progress. Expressed through
  stereotypes as backward, ignorant,
  uneducated, lazy, obstructive to progress.
  (32)

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• (b) Exaltation of Difference.
• Expressed through expressions as short, ugly,
  black, dirty, smelly, badly dressed. (24)

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• Violence.
• Expressed through violent, aggressive,
  fighter, extremist. And through prejudices as
  they are always involved in violent actions, as
  a result investors dont invest in our region, so
  they are responsible for the slow progress of our
  place (15.3)
• The category of Racism was found to be present in
  over the 70 of the sample.

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2. Paternalism

• It deals with a more modern and subtle version of
  racism. The mainstream society holds the
  responsibility to help the indigenous progress,
  that is doing things for them.

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• It is expressed through prejudices as
• its our duty to help because they are not
  capable of sustaining themselves,
• they do not try anything for themselves,
• everything has to be given to them ready-made.

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3. The recognition paradox

• This category deals with an overt positive
  recognition of the Mapuches of the past (the
  historical one is regarded as brave, fighting
  hero for liberty) and an avoidance or negation
  of todays Mapuches (the alive ones) as real
  Mapuches, but as a degeneration of the original
  race.

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The second study

• The problem
• Are Mapuches aware of being discriminated
  against?
• What types of discrimination do they perceive?
• What are the psychosocial effects of
  discrimination in Mapuches?

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Participants

• 100 Mapuche men and women residents in Temuco
  (50) and Santiago (50) were interviewed. Their
  ages ranged between 23 and 78 years old and
  belonged to three educational groups completed
  primary education, completed secondary education
  and college studies.

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Discourse method for Analysis

• CDA four level method (refer to Merino, 2006)
• First level of analysis
• topic identification. Selected from events and
  categorized into inclusive topics (content
  analysis).
• Second level
• argumentation argumentative structure. Classical
  rhetoric steps for exordio narratio
  argumentatio peroratio.

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• Third level
• Speech acts and their functions. Reveal
  illocutionary force of an utterance.
• Strategies of local semantics Revealed from
  argumentation.
• Fourth level
• - Intertextual analysis cross-sectional analysis
  of discourse levels against contextual and
  historical information.

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Findings

• Mapuches are aware of Chileans discriminatory
  practices against them.
• And distinguish four main modes verbal,
  behavioural, institutional and macrosocial.

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1. The verbal mode

• The verbal mode was the most widespread way of
  discrimination perceived.
• Three main categories were revealed name
  calling, abuse, remarks.

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(a) Name calling

• Most widespread name calling is indian.
• Mapuches correlate this name with a stereotyped
  attribution (racialist ideology indians
  primitive) introduced by Spanish Conquistadors
  into the American continent.
• Perceived as highly offensive.

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(b) Abuse and remarks

• Verbal abuse and intimidating remarks were most
  frequently found in the
• contexts of primary education, the police and
  work place.
• It is remarkable that teachers were mentioned as
  the most salient perpetrators and likely to have
  set the deepest psychological effects in their
  victims.

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(c) Jokes and taunts

• They usually deal with Mapuche names built on
  derogative or obscene connections with intimate
  body parts using sarcastic similes of phonetic
  similarity of indigenous second names with
  Spanish taboo words (Mapuche name Pichicon
  pichi for Spanish piurinate).

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2. The behavioural mode

• In the behavioral mode looking, ignoring, and
  inferiorizing are the most frequent ways of
  discrimination perceived by Mapuches.

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(a) Looking

• Looking was a major form of discrimination
  reported by participants.
• It takes a variety of forms including being
  looked at inquisitively, in a mocking way,
  derogatorily, or disapprovingly because of ones
  Mapuche condition.

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(b) Ignoring

• It takes the form of failing to answer to
  greetings,questions, or requests, or ignoring
  ones presence and/or opinion, motivated by the
  indigenous condition.
• Such behaviours are carried out by non-Mapuche
  people who have a higher status, usually in
  working contexts, or in both private and public
  services.

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(b) Inferiorizing

• It places a strong emphasis on the belittling
  nature of the interactions between Mapuche and
  non-Mapuche people.
• Inferiorization is conceptually related to the
  notion of infrahumanization. It is a more
  direct attack on a persons esteem.

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For example, T2 reports

• In fact, yesterday I visited the dentist in a
  private health care institution and I needed to
  go to the toilet, I asked the secretaries at the
  counter where the toilet was, but nobody
  answered

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3. The institutional mode

• It occurs at an interpersonal level mainly in
  public offices, governmental institutions and
  commerce, where perpetrators perform
  discriminatory practices under the protection of
  an institution and can be individualized by the
  victims.
• Among the most recursive institutional modes are
  segregation,harassment, inferiorizing, ignoring
  and denying opportunities.

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4. Macro social discrimination

• Among these practices are ignoring or
  disregarding the indigenous culture, cultural
  dominance in education, miss information from the
  media, pervasive use of ethnic stereotypes in the
  public discourse.

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What are the psychosocial effects of
discrimination in Mapuches?

• Psychosocial effects are classified into 2 broad
  categories
• Emotions
• Long term effects
• For details see Mellor, D., Merino, M., Saiz,
  J., Quilaqueo, D. Discrimination among the
  Mapuche people of Chile. J. Community Appl. Soc.
  Psychol. 2008.

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1. Emotions

• Psychologically wounded.
• The most dominant emotional response was feeling
  psychologically wounded (72 of participants)
  with responses ranging over a continuum of six
  states
• feeling belittled, humiliated, degraded, hurt,
  bitter or traumatized.

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• These subcategories were differentiated by the
  degree of intensity explicitly evident through
  tone or emphasis, or implicit in the transcripts.

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• Example
• Feeling belittled (6 of participants) was coded
  for reactions that resulted from being
  represented or spoken of as unimportant or
  incapable.
• It was reported for example by T031 after
  overhearing her non-Mapuche sisters-in-law
  gossiping about her incapability of
• completing her degree studies because of her
  being Mapuche. She reported, I felt bad, like
  something insignificant.

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• (b) Anger.
• This category ranged along a continuum of four
  levels
• annoyance (2 of participants),
• irritation (10 of participants),
• indignation (20 of participants) and
• anger (20 of participants).

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• Example
• T07 who was regularly mocked and harassed by her
  employer while working as a nanny.
• She reported that in response to the mocking, I
  didnt feel inferior, but it made me very angry.

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• (c) Undifferentiated emotional disturbance.
• The third type of emotional response was
• labelled undifferentiated emotional disturbance
  or bad feelings (30 of participants).

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• We were unable to code these responses into other
  categories because participants did not or could
  not elaborate on them, and simply said they felt
  bad. In some cases, the response was
  accompanied by psychosomatic symptoms.

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• Example
• Participants described their emotional responses
  to discrimination as, for example, feeling very
  bad or my whole body hurt all the time and the
  doctors didnt find anything wrong in me.

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• T12 reported such feelings during school when
  gifts and clothing donations were sent to the
  children at her rural school and teachers
  distributed among the students
• (. . .) the best and most beautiful gifts were
  given to the non-Mapuche classmates. . .and so we
  felt really bad. Perhaps since we were little
  children then we didnt realize that it was
  because we were Mapuche, but now I know it was in
  such way, the only I know is that we felt very
  bad for that.

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• (d) Shame
• reported by 52of participants, shame is painful
  emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt,
  embarrassment, unworthiness or disgrace.
• This occurred usually when participants were
  confronted with verbal and behavioural practices
  that highlighted and inferiorized their Mapuche
  status.

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• For example,T05 reported on a friend who did not
  want to recognize that she had a Mapuche family
  name so I think she was ashamed of recognizing
  it, though she knew I was Mapuche as well.
• Other emotions found were Fear, Powerlessness
  and Sadness

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2. Long term effects

• Participants reported that their experiences of
  discrimination had long-term impacts on their
  wellbeing.
• These impacts were categorized as being either
  psychological or social in nature, and within
  each of these categories, positive or negative.

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• The most frequent long-term impact reported was
  the positive psychological subcategory.
• Twenty-one participants (42) reported that their
  experiences of discrimination had led to an
  ignition or a re-affirmation of their Mapuche
  identity.

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• A case of ethnic re-affirmation happened to T13
  as a result of being harassed and segregated at
  high school by his classmates and a teacher
• I reckon that I learned from those experiences,
  I first negated my identity but after some time I
  started to assume my Mapuche condition in a
  positive way.

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• However, 23 participants (46) also reported
  negative psychological outcomes, including having
  denied their identity, suffering continuing pain
  or accepting their inferiority.
• Example
• S10 as a result of the constant mocking of his
  Mapuche name and indigenous physical traits
  reported during a long period of time I didnt
  want to be Mapuche. . .I used to question myself
  why I should have to be Mapuche.

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• In the social domain,
• 34 participants related positive outcomes, such
  as being
• strengthened as victims, usually resulting in
  having their family connection strengthened.
• T02 reported, my mum would strengthen my
  identity by saying come on dear, you
• must not feel sad, you can afford whatever you
  wish, you have great potential.

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Conclusions

• 1. Does the Chilean population discriminate
  against Mapuches?
• Yes, over the 75 of the sample did.
• 2. How is it manifested?
• Through three main categories present in their
  everyday oral discourse about Mapuches racism,
  paternalism and the recognition paradox.

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• Are Mapuches aware of being discriminated
  against?
• What types of discrimination do they perceive?
• Mapuches are aware of being discriminated
  against.
• They reported four types of discrimination
  verbal, behavioral, institutional and macro.
• The verbal mode with name calling Indian and
  remarks are the most frequent,
• followed by behavioral ignoring, inferiorizing
  and looking.

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• In what contexts and life stages is
  discrimination perceived?
• Discrimination is highly perceived in educational
  and public service contexts and experienced
  strongly in childhood, less strongly in
  adolescence and more subtle in adulthood,
• Among middle to high SE status participants it
  turns more implicit as they reach adulthood.

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• It is important to note that research in the area
  of perceived discrimination is constricted by the
  subjectivity of participants self-definitions of
  discrimination, which cannot be objectively
  measured.
• For instance, Crocker and Major (1989) state
  that perceptions of discrimination are inherently
  subjective because many possible discriminatory
  events are ambiguous, and that stigmatized
  individuals can never be certain whether negative
  interactions or outcomes resulted from
  discrimination or some other factor.

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• However, Essed (1991, 1992) argues that people
  from groups with a history of discrimination
  against them (like the Mapuches), have both a
  situational and general knowledge that allows
  them to
• make such interpretations with great certainty.

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• And this applies to the case of Mapuches in
  Chile, since the two studies my team has
  developed have proved that
• there is prejudice and discrimination in the
  discourse of the mainstream society (Merino et
  al.,), in four main categories verbal,
  behavioural, institutional and macrosocial,
• These categories correlate with Mapuches
  perception of discrimination.

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• Finally, in agreement with the findings presented
  today, I would like to highlight the
  responsibility of our Faculties of Education in
  the study of racism and discriminatory practices
  in the educational context, by researching school
  strategies and practices and curriculum policies
  that can do away with this social inequality.

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• Thank you