Abstract

The article examines how urban Mapuche women co-construct discourses about their ethnogenesis process through evaluations and dialogical positioning. The methodology is qualitative with an interpretive design. The collection method was a focus group in which four urban Mapuche women between 25 and 55 years old participated. The analysis was conducted from a Critical Discourse Studies approach that integrates sociopolitical studies of Mapuche history and decolonial perspectives on the formation of ethnic identity, with the analytical tools of the appraisal system within the Systemic Functional Linguistics theoretical framework. The study focuses on the intersubjective meanings of the attitude and engagement to identify evaluations, positions, and voices present in this discursive construction. The results indicate that participants develop discursive strategies of ‘counter-racialization’ to respond to the ‘racialization’ that has shaped their lives. The discursive strategies are collectively constructed through different evaluative micro-maneuvers that are realized in the discursive semantic stratum as couplings of areas of attitude: affect/judgement and affect/appreciation and couplings of the attitude/engagement meanings. Through these discursive strategies, these women re-signify and celebrate their Mapuche identity by embodying a new symbolic territory that allows them to carry their ancestors and spiritual world.