Abstract: This dissertation chronicles the cultural, musical and performative fronts during two centuries of struggle and negotiation between Mapuche and Chilean societies. The perspective is mainly ethnomusicological, including two years of fieldwork in the Araucanía region, concerning new genres of Mapuche fusion music such as rock and hip-hop. This writing demonstrates how Mapuche expressions and representations accrued various forms of value during Chile's modernization—including colonization, nation building, the emergence of modern social movements, and the implementation of neoliberal policies—and how artists contend with and subvert those values today.
The opening chapters are historical. Following the invasion of Araucanía in the 1880s, Mapuche political activism eventually gained traction by carefully managing a relationship with the Chilean political establishment, while also cultivating a unique approach to political processes that incorporated preexisting rituals. Concurrently, the Mapuche transitioned from adversaries to objects of study, while concepts such as folklore took root in Chilean society. As popular culture took note of Mapuche sounds and symbols toward the mid-twentieth century, non-Mapuche artists and activists codified their progressive ideologies through their embrace of indigeneity, exemplified in art music, and most famously, nueva canción.
Based directly on fieldwork, the second half of the thesis discusses how Mapuche cultural continuity has involved both the recovery of traditions and the incorporation of non-traditional elements. I describe the conversion of a mingako ritual into a festival of music and poetry in the Mapuche comunidad of Saltapura. This transfer from agriculture to expressive culture demonstrates the diminishing value of Mapuche lands, parallel with the increasing value of their expressions, under neoliberal multiculturalism. Meanwhile, Mapuche heavy metal and hip-hop groups such as Pewmayén and Weichafe Newen build their music around ancestral principles of sound, ritual and language, raising the question as to whether Mapuche musical elements thus become ingredients of popular music, or whether popular music becomes Mapuche for incorporating these elements. Through detailed discussions of this music and its broader contexts, this dissertation issues a critique of the culture concept underpinning neoliberal multiculturalism, inherited from the investigations of the Mapuche during the early republican period.

Abstract: This thesis aims to conduct a study of battle jackets using painting as a recording and analytical tool. A battle jacket is a customised garment worn in heavy metal subcultures that features decorative patches, band insignia, studs and other embellishments. Battle jackets are significant in the expression of subcultural identity for those that wear them, and constitute a global phenomenon dating back at least to the 1970s. The art practice juxtaposes and re-contextualises cultural artefacts in order to explore the narratives and traditions that they are a part of. As such, the work is situated within the genre of contemporary still life and appropriative painting. The paintings presented with the written thesis document a series of jackets and creatively explore the jacket form and related imagery. The study uses a number of interrelated critical perspectives to explore the meaning and significance of the jackets. Intertextual approaches explore the relationship of the jackets to other cultural forms.
David Muggleton’s ‘distinctive individuality’ and Sarah Thornton’s ‘subcultural capital’ are used to emphasise the importance of jacket making practices for expressions of personal and corporate subcultural identity. Italo Calvino’s use of postmodern semiotic structures gives a tool for placing battle jacket practice within a shifting network of meanings, whilst Richard Sennett’s‘material consciousness’ helps to understand the importance of DIY making practices used by fans. The project refers extensively to a series of interviews conducted with battle jacket makers between 2014 and 2016. Recent art historical studies of still life painting have used a materialist critique of historic works to demonstrate the uniqueness of painting as a method of analysis. The context for my practice involves historical references such as seventeenth century Dutch still life painting. The work of contemporary artists who are exploring the themes and imagery of extreme metal music is also reviewed.