The present work and the themes expressed here are the result of experience plus studies done in different research projects and extra-curricular university activities, in which have been addressed the tourism development and its socio-cultural and economic impact on mapuche communities of the Patagonian region in the provinces of Neuquén and Río Negro. With the support of qualitative methods, such as the ethnographic records, the axes that have guided the field work over the last decade and a half were: characterize and explain the historical and social processes that shaped mapuche communities, their vindictive and concrete actions, plus representations and stigmatization of the rest of society in tourism contexts.