Ruralidad y otredad: el "barrio de los negros" de Exaltación de la Cruz, provincia de Buenos Aires, un análisis preliminar

CECILIA PÉREZ WINTER

Tandil

Jornada; Segundas Jornadas Nacionales de Investigación y Docencia en Geografía Argentina. Octavas jornadas de investigación y extensión del Centro de Investigaciones Geográficas; 2012

Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Universidad del Centro de la provincia de Buenos Aires

During the XIX century, Argentina nation-state was organized under the Civilization and Barbarism principles, which lead to exclusion process of those socio-cultural sectors that did not fit in the idea of a ?white European? Argentina. Hence, Indians, gauchos, black and afromixed races, were reduced and ?whitened? by different mechanisms, like the European immigration. In order to homogenize the Argentine society, and in the view that the immigrants where not the one expected by the political elite, during the XX century the gaucho figure was appreciated as a constitutive element of the Pampa, and transformed into a symbol of national identity. These ideas were promoted by literature and other artistic expressions which helped to create a sense of Argentine countryside: the Pampa as the stage and the gaucho as the main character. Nowadays, the leisure enterprises take these ideas in which the gaucho and even the Indian figure are taken as representative subjects of the Argentine countryside. In the past and present situation, black and afromixed races are never considered as constitutive subjects of this area, even though they had a significant presence in Buenos Aires province, particularly in its agriculture development during the XIX and XX centuries. Within this framework, the aim of this presentation is to visibilized a rural settlement in the late XIX and mid-XX in Exaltación de la Cruz district, north of Buenos Aires province. Originally, these lands were part of a family property which then led to the settlement were lived several related afromixed families that worked in agrarian activities. According to local reports, the community consisted of people who were characterized by their "darker" complexion and where homogenized when other villagers named the place "the black neighborhood". Hence, the objectives of this paper is to visibilized this rural settlement, and also question the notion of the Argentine countryside created during the XX century, and currently used by the leisure enterprises like golf clubs and rural tourism, among others; which are also presented in the construction of history and tourism/heritage discourses of Exaltación de la Cruz, which will be considered in this work. The information used for this paper was obtained through interviews, and analysis of documents and specific bibliography.