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Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a recently initiated study on Swedish migration to northeastern Argentina in the late 19th and early 20th century. By tracing settlers' narrations in archival material the study address experiences of colonial settlement and encounters between settlers and Indigenous Peoples.

Paper long abstract:

The history of 19th and 20th century migration from Europe to the Americas have been studied from many angles and within many disciplines. However, even if Indigenous Peoples and the European migrants who settled on their land co-existed in the same space at the same time, the history of migration has rarely touched upon the relations between these two groups. This paper will discuss a recently initiated ethnographic case-study of Swedish migration to northeastern Argentina in the late 19th and early 20th century. During the latter half of the 19th century migrants from diverse working-class backgrounds first arrived from Sweden to southern Brazil. Some stayed on while others eventually settled in Misiones, Argentina. Most were incorporated into the regional peasant class becoming small-scale farmers, settling on land partially inhabited by Indigenous Peoples. This case study will look at various forms of archival material, such as audio recordings, written memories and letters of first-generation settlers in Misiones in search of narrations about encounters between Swedish settler colonists and Indigenous Peoples. The main purpose of the over-arching project is to investigate how migration, settlement and dispossession became entangled in everyday life of settler societies. The project seeks to answer questions related to three analytical strands: the subjective experience of settlement, the possession and dispossession structures of settlement, and the cultural, social and spatial borders of settlement.