What should be done with the foreigner? From "object of desire" to "enemy within" (1853-1910)

MARTA BONAUDO; DIEGO MAURO

Enemies Within: Cultural Hierarchies and Liberal Political Models in the Hispanic World

Cambridge Scholar Publishing

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2015; p. 41 - 70

This chapter reopens the debate about the problematic issue of foreignness in Argentina by exploring it from the specific dimension of the way in which the conception of "the foreigner" was transformed.After the approval of the 1853 Constitution, this paradigmatic figure was regarded by the elites as the keyconstituent of their project to set societyon new foundations, a civilizing instrument necessary to bring about the dual transplant of institutions and population that they desired; by the end of the century, however, the foreigner had transmuted into a threat, a disruptive element of the order it had helped develop.