Basque identity in Argentina.

GAZTAÑAGA JULIETA

San Sebastián

Congreso; Challenges of Basque identity in the 21st century; 2022

EHU/UPV

There is a paradox of identity that also affects culture by which essentialist definitions of identity are the most effective in having effects in the world (whether to claim or to celebrate identifications). Peo-ple and groups are sometimes aware and sometimes not about this. However, sooner or later, the ef-fects of people mobilizing primordial and static symbols in relational ways emerge in question forms. The processes that have forged the so-called Basque identity in Argentina are many and subject to disputes. One can speak about chain migration, regions and zones of both countries, occupations, skills and jobs, forms of associationism and cooperation, political ideologies, religious creeds, blood markers, euskalkis, linguistic shame, peasant egalitarianism, games and bets, daily altars made of transatlantic curiosities, letters, old post-cards, and symbols, lots of them. And what about the present and future. There is no Basque Identity but many.Basque identity in former Spanish colonies tend to be addressed within a specific template: a unitary model that articulates cultural diffusion with a primitivist, romantic and even miserabilist approach. The "carriers" of such identity outside Homeland tend “to be” or to exist at the cost of “not being”. They embody uprooting and bear witness a loss like a volatile root they risk drying out if not trans-planted quickly on solid and authentic land. Such diffusionist model is also evolutionary: far away space and time, the diaspora is like a living fossil; an Anthropocene megalodon. The evidence seems to be there: usually ancestors of 3, 4 or 5 generations up carry the “true” ethnological credential. In this paper I propose that even we any know cultural identity is not equal to genetics and cultural identification has to do with choices rather than with something that can be lost by betting, this model pervades expectations and feelings about Basqueness. However, the past is crucial to alert us about tragedy and farce: the challenges of Basque identity in the 21st century need to produce dialogues with the present. Can we renovate the place we give to the problem of identity considering the role differences and inequalities play, the hope and the fear, the uncertainty and the trust, free mobility and generous hospitality, fair rights and facts, decent projects and dreams, the common and the commons?