Territorial Demands and Indigenous Memories in the Social Production of Victims in Humahuaca, Jujuy, Argentina

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between territorial claims and long‐term indigenous memories, analyzing their articulation in processes of victimhood and political subject formation. Drawing on the case of a death during a land conflict in the Andean town of Humahuaca, Jujuy, Argentina, it shows how collective memories of dispossession and struggle were reactivated, producing a figure of sacrifice that condensed historical grievances and contemporary tensions. The case demonstrates that the victim is not merely a passive condition but a generative political force, one that reconfigures territorial demands beyond judicial arenas and reframes conflict through symbolic and affective registers. The sacrificial figure of the Humahuaca‐born “Pato Condorí” thus emerged as both a landmark in long‐term land struggles and a site where more recent dynamics—such as the patrimonialization of the region and the consolidation of politically salient indigenous identities—became entangled.