The political implications of interculturality as a floating signifier in public policy in Argentina

This chapter explores how the concept of interculturality operates as a floating signifier in Argentine public policy, focusing on its deployment in relation to Indigenous rights at national, provincial, and municipal levels. Drawing on critical Latin American ethnic studies and ethnographic research in the province of Río Negro, it examines how interculturality is both institutionalised and re-signified in situated practices. The analysis traces its emergence as a policy tool shaped by tensions between inclusion and assimilation, and explores how municipal actors in San Carlos de Bariloche have mobilised the term to disrupt institutional logics and address intersecting forms of exclusion. Rather than treating interculturality as a fixed normative framework, the chapter approaches it as a site of political struggle – negotiated through everyday governance, historical formations of otherness, and subnational dynamics. In doing so, it contributes to broader debates on cultural recognition, state transformation, and the shifting conditions of policymaking in contexts of democratic regression.