Ana Butto has a PhD in Archaeology, a Diploma in Community Cultural Heritage, and is a Professor in Anthropological Sciences from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of Buenos Aires (UBA). She also holds a degree in Professional Photography from the Nueva Escuela de Diseño y Comunicación. Currently she holds the position of Researcher of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), working at the Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC), located in the city of Ushuaia, Province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands, Argentina.

Research topics: photographs of Patagonian and Fuegian Native Peoples taken during the conformation and expansion of the Argentine nation-state; ethnographic and archaeological collections of Fuegian Native Peoples kept in museums; representation of Fuegian Native Peoples in museums and exhibitions; contemporary material culture of Fuegian Native Peoples and management of the cultural heritage of Fuegian Native Peoples by tourism.

Recent publications: 

• (2024) with Fiore, D. Fuegia en el monasterio. Primer registro completo de la colección de artefactos de Pueblos Originarios Fueguinos trasladados por Martin Gusinde al Monasterio de Sankt Gabriel (Austria). Arqueología 30 (1): 1-22. http://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/Arqueologia/article/vie...
• (2023) with M. Maldonado. Tejer nuevas narrativas: el viaje de una tayka selk´nam a una exhibición etnográfica alemana. Atek Na 12: 213-229. https://plarci.org/index.php/atekna/article/view/1334
• (2022). Condiciones de (in)accesibilidad al patrimonio fotográfico de indígenas patagónico-fueguinos. Páginas Revista Digital de la Escuela de Historia Año 14, N° 35: 1-24. https://revistapaginas.unr.edu.ar/index.php/RevPaginas/article/view/642
• (2021) with Fiore, D. Fuegian diaspora: The itinerary and agents involved in the construction of Fuegian ethnographic collections carried out by Martin Gusinde through South America and Europe, 1918-1924. Museum History Journal 14 (1-2): 1 – 19. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19369816.2021.2000701
• (2021). with Fiore, D. y Vargas V. Yagan Heritage in Tierra del Fuego (Argentina): The Politics of Balance. Heritage Vol. 4: 3790-3805. https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/4/4/208?type=check_update&version=1
• (2019) with Fiore, D. Fuegian Museums and Anthropological Discourses: A Comparison of the Representations of Indigenous Societies from Tierra del Fuego in the Two Southernmost Museums in the World (Museo del Fin del Mundo, Argentina, and Museo Antropologico Martín Gusinde). Museum Anthropology Vol. 42 N° 2: 125-144. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/muan.12212

Research project as CALAS fellow

Title: The word of the Fuegian Native Peoples in the face of extinction narratives

Abstract: The present research project proposes a comparative analysis of three books published by referents of the Native Peoples of Tierra del Fuego: “Mi sangre yagan” by Víctor Vargas Filgueira; “Cristina Calderon. Memories of my Yagan grandmother” by Cristina Zárraga and ”Between two worlds. Past and present of the Selk'nam-Haus culture of Tierra del Fuego” by Margarita Maldonado; in order to inquire into the processes of ethnic re-emergence and the strategic uses of their indigenous identities to discuss or confront the narrative of extinction imposed on these Peoples from the hegemonic scientific discourse and the official history, both Argentine and Chilean. The colonization of Tierra del Fuego began at the end of the 19th century and was characterized by the direct establishment of settlers in territories inhabited by native peoples, who imposed violence, displacement, deportation and a drastic demographic crisis on the indigenous communities, leading to the disarticulation of their traditional ways of life. Thus, since the beginning of the 20th century, the life of the Selk'nam and Yaganes passed to be carried out as salaried workers in ranches and cities, speakers of the Spanish language and school students in a stigmatizing account of cultural diversity, thus being included and made invisible in the nation-states as marginal citizens. Regional history thus focused on the “pioneer” white society that settled in these territories thought to be hostile, making the indigenous communities of Tierra del Fuego invisible in official and academic narratives. However, the consolidation of the ethnic resurgence and the commitment to write their own history in a defiant way, discusses and challenges the official and academic discourses and imaginaries, creating new visions of the indigenous past and present. In this sense, we consider that the new narratives proposed by these three authors challenge and help to decolonize hegemonic discourses and national histories, by demanding that their history be told in their own words and with their own voice.