“Indio No Estandarizado” : Countering State Discourses of Indigeneity through Poetry Online

Abstract

Mapuche poetry has become increasingly popular in Chile. However, the government primarily promotes those Mapuche poets whose vision of Mapuche identity is in line with its own views. How much scope does Mapuche poetry online offer for articulating and visualising counterhegemonic discourses on Mapuche identity? By examining Mapuche poetry videos on the Mapuche YouTube channel “Wetruwe Mapuche” and an extract from a government TV debate on Mapuche identity on YouTube, this article assesses whether the internet is an effective tool to disseminate counter-hegemonic views or whether the internet perpetuates the same power hierarchies that exist in the offline world.