Identity and cultural fields of the Maulino Biobío: a proposal of interpretation from social work

Abstract

The territories of the BiobiÌo Maulino river, on both sides of its banks, have become in colonial historiography a mythical and symbolic place, which accounts for an imaginary, from which it is impossible to detach for the analysis of the history of Chile. And, above all, it is a crucial reference to build a historical account of those original social groups that, founding territories beyond or beyond Spanish colonialism, built relationships and social practices, which in the form of traditions and customs constitute traces and indications that reverberate contemporarily as identity signs of the existence of social communities absent or silenced from history. Such is the case, it seems to us, of the mestizos of the BiobiÌo Maulino. This nomination is also an imaginary construction that we propose to recover the memory of the popular subjects of the penquistas and maulinos, halfway between the Spanish peasants and the Mapuche people. Social Work as a discipline is mandated to establish links with a new history and to propose new imaginaries for the development of its historical and cultural situated explanations of the popular subjects and their emancipation processes.