Un mal salvaje

The construction of Southern Hemisphere states rests on an urgent question: upon what acts of violence was their prosperity built? The extermination, enslavement, and silencing of indigenous peoples run through the national narratives explored by J. M. Coetzee and F. M. Siccardi, tracing a novel line of South-South reflection. Blending essay and literature, the authors interweave personal memories and historical accounts that challenge heroic narratives of national foundation and restore the voices of those who had been erased. Coetzee examines the violence inflicted upon the Khoi and San peoples in South Africa, the genocide perpetrated by the German Empire in Namibia in the early 20th century, and the systematic persecution of Australian Aboriginal peoples. Siccardi traces the history of colonial violence in the Argentine Pampas and Patagonia—from the mid-18th century through the so-called Conquest of the Desert—demonstrating how the State and its foundational imaginaries were forged upon the exclusion of indigenous peoples.