In anthropology, communities are usually interpreted as a product of the past. The importance of historical processes in the constitution of communities is unquestionable. But the future is also involved.
This paper refers to the emerging indigenous communities in an urban area in the Argentinean North Patagonia. These communities arise, disappear, and recreate themselves with fluidity. They are better explained as a project than as a historical result. Without a shared origin to refer to, the ethnically based common future is the key to building community.
Indigenous communities are often configured through shared ancestral territory and dense kinship relationships. But in the examined cases both elements are missing. This is a consequence of the violent occupation of the Patagonian space by the National State in the last quarter of the 19th century. At that time, the so-called "conquest of the desert", a true genocide, dismantled the previous indigenous ways of life. Despite this harsh history, indigenous identifications persisted in rural and urban contexts. Thus, in some Patagonian cities ethnic community arrangements eventually arise: they lack territory and membership is not defined by kinship. These peculiar arrangements are not founded on a common origin but on intentions of a shared future based on community notions and indigenous ascription.
In my perspective, community configurations are always a problem that the researcher must define in light of specific relationship systems. For this, it is necessary to consider the communities as a process. The future is involved.
