INSTITUTO "DR. E.RAVIGNANI"   24160
INSTITUTO DE HISTORIA ARGENTINA Y AMERICANA "DR. EMILIO RAVIGNANI"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
The Fourth Function of Criollismo: The Struggles over the Definition of the Origins and the Colour of the Argentinean Ethnos in the Times of Peronism
Autor/es:
EZEQUIEL ADAMOVSKY
Lugar:
Washington DC
Reunión:
Congreso; XXXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association; 2013
Institución organizadora:
Latin American Studies Association
Resumen:
XXXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies
Association, Washington, DC (EEUU), 30 mayo al 1 de junio de 2013.
Ponencia: The Fourth Function of Criollismo: The Struggles over the Definition
of the Origins and the Colour of the Argentinean Ethnos in the Times of
Peronism
This
paper analyses a peculiar use of the criollista discourse among
peronists between 1945 and 1955. In his classic study of that discourse, Adolfo
Prieto argued that its remarkable expansion in the late 19th century
was the consequence of three concurring reasons. The fading gaucho world was
appealing (firstly) for the criollo lower classes, as an expression of
nostalgia and of the anxieties brought about as part of the experience of
modernization; (secondly) for the immigrants, as an easy way to feel part of
the nation by identifying with a symbol of national authenticity and, (thirdly)
for the elites, as a way to claim precedence by excluding the rebellious
newcomers from the nation. It is the contention of this paper that, contrary to
Prietos assumption, the criollista discourse continued to play a key role in
Argentinean culture after the 1920s and well into the 1950s. This endurance is
explained by the fact that it played a fourth function: criollismo continued to
be attractive, at least in part, because it was one of the channels through
which popular culture managed to allude to the ethnic heterogeneity of the
Argentinean people (its non-white and mestizo components in particular),
longtime denied by the dominant discourses of the nation. Although the
official peronist discourses did not openly challenge the idea of a
white-European nation, criollismo was an arena in which it was subtly
undermined.