On May 26, at 6:30 PM, the Centro de Artes Visuais/Museu do Barro, in Asunción, hosts the launch of the book For Another History of the Chaco War: Collection of Documents and Accounts on the Military Occupation of Indigenous Territories of the Boreal Chaco (1910-1960). The work, the result of over a decade of research, brings together indigenous oral testimonies, campaign diaries, correspondence, maps, photographs, and sound recordings from archives in Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Europe.
The authors, Chilean-French anthropologist and historian Nicolás Richard (researcher at CNRS and PhD from EHESS in Paris) and French historian Luc Capdevila (full professor at the University of Rennes 2), propose a reading that goes beyond the isolated war event. They situate the Chaco War (1932-1935) as part of a medium-term process marked by the advance of the State and the forced subordination of the indigenous peoples of the region.
Unlike traditional military chronicles, which often portray the Chaco as an uninhabited and barren territory, the collection seeks to shift the historiographic focus to the territorial reorganization and violent transformation of native communities. The book includes critical comments by anthropologist José Braunstein and art critic Ticio Escobar. Admission is free and open to the public.