Integration, exclusion, exception: Discourses of national identity and social self in Chile and Argentina (1780-1950)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Barbara Potthast
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2009 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 117247976

The project examines the emergence, consolidation and distribution of discourses of national identity in Chile and Argentina. Taking a twofold perspective it reconstructs and explores the public debate about the nation, national identity and national characteristics from the (end of) late colonial time (period) until the mid 20th century. First, the project explores in how far the public debate projects an image of (apparently) successful social construction of national identity that to this day affects the political culture in both countries as well as their mutual perception. Second, the aim is to consider respective national debates about chilenidad and argentinidad as open competition about the definition and attribution of identity, and battle ground for politically motivated interpretation of history.What are the social groups promoting different images of identity?How are these identities mediated/distributed?How do these national identities relate/contribute to the consolidation of existing or emergence of new relationships with of other aspects of identity formation (e.g. ethnicity, religion, gender and class)?Existing research approaches the process of nation building predominantly via descriptive accounts of national symbolism and memorial culture. In contrast to this, the present project traces the discursive lines of conflict that characterise the ongoing national identity formation since the early 19th century in Chile and Argentina. Specific focus is on the scientific historical and media driven legitimations that underpin processes of inclusion and exclusion, particularly in ethnically and socioeconomically heterogeneous societies.The research explores these questions analysing data from a broad range of sources, these include administrative files and documents, various popular magazines and newspapers, prose and fiction, scientific historical publications and schoolbooks. The project employs a comparative method. Taking Argentina and Chile as case studies the project examines the history of their mutual relation-ship. Apart from obvious similarities between the Chilean and Argentinean developments (territorial expansion to the south, strong Eurocentric affinities of the elites, mass immigration) the study examines in how far the neighbour countries have influenced the formation of the respective national selves. In the first half of the 19th century, Chile served as a positive example, with Argentinean expatriates projecting their national aspirations onto Chile as the apparent ideal of a "solidly constructed nation-state". During the same time period the Chilean national self-perception, which was based on an ideal of social order, gained strength through the explicit contrast with Argentina and its perceived issues: lack of political stability, caudillismo, disputes between the capital and the provinces.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Dr. Antonio Sáez-Arance