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The indigenous peoples are distributed in all regions of the world, representing more than 6% of the world’s population. According to UN data, the pandemic has disproportionately affected indigenous groups, aggravating the structural inequalities and processes of widespread historical discrimination and exclusion present in the Global South, for example, high rates of extreme poverty, social exclusion, high prevalence of the disease, and limited and in some cases non-existent access to health care. Also, indigenous peoples have a great wealth of knowledge, traditional practices, cultural forms, and access to natural resources, as well as forms of collective social organization and community life that result in resilience factors in response to adversity and uncertainty. In this way, the chapter focuses from a descriptive-analytical approach on the situation of indigenous peoples and the pandemic, analyzing the forms of responses, their resilient action in the face of uncertainties and structural exclusions in the Global South.

This article has two central objectives, on the one hand, to analyze the process by which the Selk'nam population was declared extinct on the island of Tierra del Fuego, putting special emphasis on the process of colonization and the consequences this brought, especially the process of assimilation and ethnocide. Subsequently, a theoretical review is made of the concepts of ethnicity and ethnogenesis as processes through which the resurgence of groups of individuals who currently recognize themselves as members of the indigenous Selk'nam group can be explained. In this sense, the concept of Ethnoheterogenesis is linked as a model through which the current processes of self-recognition of individuals with ethnic groups can be explained. To conclude the article focuses the discussion on recognizing those cultural aspects present today, the action of ethnic groups, and the need for legal and symbolic recognition of the current existence of Selk'nam ethnic groups.