Towards a Tuwün Wariache? Place-making and creative acts of traversing in the Mapuche city

This article addresses experiences of belonging and place-making of indigenous
Mapuche youths in Santiago, Chile. Moving from a collaborative ethnography, it elaborates on the emplacement of the tuwün (place of origin) – usually linked to ancestral territories – within the city, and the meanings this shift entails. Furthering knowledge on indigenous spatiality by addressing migration, the analysis focuses on the ambivalent ways in which memory, affect and
power relations are embedded in urban materialities, and are negotiated through ‘acts of traversing’. The significant relationship between persons and places is conceived as mediated by movement, expanding on the creative possibilities of routing. Moreover, drawing on practice based methods, the article argues for a shared engagement with research participants in order to gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which place and self-making in contexts of migration encompass both rupture and creative re-appropriation, contributing to current debates on displacement and the sense of place.