Civilización v. barbarie

"In an odd sense, democracy was both the problem and the solution for the thinkers of 1837. On the one hand, they subscribed in principle to notions of institutional representative government; on the other, they deeply distrusted the will of the people since the masses were solidly behind Rosas and the traditional authoritarianism he represented. Without the active support of the masses, Rosas could never have retained power as long as he did. The mission of the Men of '37 then is a mission of paradox. They must discredit the masses and the 'inorganic democracy' represented by caudillo rule while at the same time reorganizing Argentine society in the name of the masses and laying the foundation for institutional democracy once the masses are ready for it." (Shumway, 133)

Racism

Depiction of Federalists as uncouth, racially mixed rabble

Binary oppositions (black-and-white thinking)

Civilization = City / Barbarism = Countryside

Binary oppositions tend to undo themselves: one term depends on other

Construction of myths of nationhood always depends on exclusion of some other

Ambivalent construction runs through these texts

Powerful way of reading these texts: tease out the unsustainability of the oppositions presented

Deconstructive reading of the instabilities at the heart of the oppositions which construct the nation

From nation to dissemination

In the end, the Nation is a powerful fictive construct

Janus-faced ambivalence of language and Janus-faced discourse of the nation

"It is the project of Nation and Narration to explore the Janus-faced ambivalence of language itself in the construction of the Janus-faced discourse of the nation. This turns the familiar two-faced god into a figure of prodigious doubling that investigates the nation-space in the process of the articulation of elements: where meanings may be partial because they are in media res; and history may be half-made because it is in the process of being made; and the image of cultural authority may be ambivalent because it is caught, uncertainly, in the act of ‘composing’ its powerful image." (Bhaba, 3)

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	Nation & Narration 1: Context, Concepts and El matadero
	Dr Geoffrey Kantaris egk10@cam.ac.uk

Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Cambridge	SP5 Learning Support
	Last updated: 14-10-2009