The representation of indigenous peoples in the Archaeology and Ethnography rooms in Tecnópolis (Argentina): experiences from university outreach

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyze the representation of indigenous peoples in the Archeology and Ethnography exhibits at the science megafair Tecnópolis (Buenos Aires, Argentina), and the problems involved in the training as educational guides of students and graduates from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires. This will be done from an ethnographic approach based on participant observation and non-directed interviews of guides in the 2018 and 2019 fairs (between the months of July and October). Based on the anthropological analysis of the way the guides experienced the museographic and museological script of both exhibitions when presenting them to the visitors, we bring out the complex framework arising from the tension between the discourse, the individual academic training and the theoretical/epistemological positioning adopted by each guide, when trying to resolve the representational problems inherent to the exhibition.