Paper short abstract:

In the 1980s the Maskoy people of Paraguay fought against the government to recover part of their traditional lands back. Drawing on the emerging framework of political ontology, I will explain why the Maskoy leaders’ version of the events has been silenced by modern historiography.

Paper long abstract:

According to one of its commentators, the fight for land of the Maskoy in the 1980s stands as a monument to indigenous organization. Nevertheless, although different non-indigenous commentators have given a variety of reasons to account for the Maskoy's success in the fight, none of them endorsed the Maskoy leaders' version of the events. In particular, none of them have recognized the shamans' role in mediating the encounters between Mascoy representatives and politicians, even if these encounters are usually described as crucial moments of the fight by its indigenous commentators. Following Latour's analysis of the Nature-Society divide, I will argue that the shamans' role in the land-claim process was deemed to be too problematic to be included in a modern narrative of the events because it openly questioned a vision of the political sphere as constituted by purely human actors. I will thus propose a 'pluriversal' narrative of the fight in order to show how it is at the crossroad between different ontological dimensions that General Alfredo Stroessner signed the expropriation of land for the Maskoy on the 20th of August of 1987.