From Tierra del Fuego to Post-Unification Italy: Fuegian Collections and the Making of a Nation

Abstract

The contribution offers an anthropological reflection starting from the Italian ethnological museum collections originating from Tierra del Fuego. These objects are examined as artefacts capable of speaking not only about the past but also about tensions, claims, and possibilities of the present. The aim is to observe how the histories connected to these objects reflect – and at times help to shape – the historical memory of a nation-state in search of legitimation and identity, as well as to explore how they might be re-signified today through participatory and dialogical practices with source communities.