Gouverner les campagnes. Analyse micro-sociale et construction institutionnelle (Río de la Plata, fin du xviiie siècle)

BARRIERA, DARÍO G.

ANNALES. HSS

EHESS // CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Lugar: PARIS; Año: 2018 vol. 73 p. 57 - 82

0395-2649

Ending the eighteenth century, the Hispanic monarchy imagined new solutions to govern its territories between the south of the Amazon, the Strait of Magellan and the Andean cordillera. Populated by farmers and shepherds, these huge rural areas remained poorly known to the authorities. Yet, among the reforms conducted in America by Charles III - including the adoption of the system of intendencias - none tackled the question of the administration of the countryside head-on. The problem is key for several reasons. In the first place, most of the population of the River Plate territory lived in the campaigns; Secondly, the enormous distances that separated these campaigns from the different centers where the monarchy authorities resided (Santa Fe, Buenos Aires or Madrid) represented a challenge that these same authorities had to face in order to govern their populations; Finally, because moving the analysis angle from a "top-down" perspective to a ground-level microanalysis allows us to propose a global idea of how these spaces work through the examination of local dynamics far removed from the centers of power.Through social microanalysis about episodes occurred in the River Plate campaign, this article shows how, by mobilizing their networks to create neighborhood and institutionality, some governed could become rulers of their own territories.