Music Inside the Walls: Mapuche Expressive Culture and Identity in the Context of a Southern Chile Boarding School

Abstract

This is a case study of the ways involvement in Mapuche expressive cultural activities inculcates a sense of cultural identity among Mapuche students at the Liceo Técnico Particular Guacolda, Chol Chol. Liceo Técnico Particular Guacolda is a boarding school just outside of Temuco, the capital of the Cautin Province, region nine, Chile, South America. The study examines aspects of the place and significance of the expressive culture of this indigenous minority group in the broader curriculum of an intercultural bilingual education (IBE) school, and the extent of student exposure to this curriculum over their four-year residence. More specifically, the study seeks to understand how participating in what has been identified as an ‘extended indigenous cultural curriculum’ contributes to the development of students’ senses of ethnic identity, that is, to how they conceive of themselves as being Mapuche. Based on data collected during ethnographic fieldwork, and interpreted through a reading of the related literature, this study discusses the effects of the integration of ethnic expressive culture and educational policy on this fragmented indigenous minority group.