This is an ethnographic study carried out in the Araucanía region, Chile. It analyses the interaction of Mapuche children with a research team when they are visited in their own homes. It describes the Mapuche protocol of visits and highlights the role that children assume as hosts of the research team. The participants were three Mapuche families from rural indigenous communities of Galvarino county, whose children attended the school`s area. The study implied systematic observations of the children’s performances during the home visits, field notes, informal interviews and visual records, all made with formal consent from children and their families. The results show that the Mapuche families act with the research team according to the cultural protocol of discourse, gift, and exchange. Children conduct the protocol of visit under the adult surveillance, but they are protagonists of interchange between hosts and visits. Mapuche children led their own agendas and taught to the research team how the culture works. This behaviour is consistent with the Mapuche model of learning, which conceives the child as a little person (che), with all the duties and rights of an adult, but little. This performance may be seen as a way of the cultural resistance of the Mapuche society.
Alarcón Muñoz, A. M., Alonqueo Boudon, P., Castro Garrido, M., & Hidalgo Standen, M. C. (2021). Memo, they’re coming to see you! Research Process as a Visiting Protocol in Mapuche Culture. Revista De Psicología, 30(1). https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-0581.2021.60642
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