Lope de Aguirre, the Tyrant, and the Prince

Convergence and Divergence in Postcolonial Collective Memory

Bibliographic Data

ID12910220
AuthorsJennifer Estava Davis (Singapore Management University, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume5
Issue4
Pages291-308
Publication date2012-07-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of International and Intercultural Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-3065 • E-ISSN: 1751-3057
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17513057.2012.705311
OpenAlexW1979349389
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited26

In Latin America, collective remembering is shaped by stories of colonizers whose voracious ambitions left an indelible mark on the landscape and its people. This essay examines a set of narratives about a legendary colonizer, Lope de Aguirre, that continue to be invoked in the collective imagination on the island of Margarita, in Venezuela. Drawing on Bormann's Symbolic Convergence Theory and Bakhtin's work on cultural discourse, this analysis shows that on the one hand, the narratives converge to support official records of Aguirre as an archetype of colonial brutality. Yet on the other, alternate versions of the stories reveal a more discordant picture, one that complicates Aguirre's character and reevaluates his influence on the island and in the wider context of Latin America. Keywords: Collective MemoryPostcolonial Latin AmericaSymbolic ConvergenceCultural DiscourseHeteroglossia Acknowledgments She wishes to thank Shiv Ganesh and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and valuable suggestions on previous drafts of this essay. Notes 1. During a one-month long research trip to Margarita in July 2002, in addition to interviewing Angel Félix Gómez, one of the few living local historians whose work on Aguirre is documented in the written materials, I interviewed other people around the island, some of whom are well known as experts in the oral history of Margarita (such as Jesús Guerra) as well as other locals in the area of Paraguachí, the vicinity of El Tirano, and at various other points around the island. The interviews were conducted during casual conversation, recorded on tape, and transcribed later. All persons interviewed were told of the nature of the project and consented to be recorded and quoted here. Additional informationNotes on contributorsJennifer Estava Davis Jennifer Estava Davis is Assistant Professor at the American University in Cairo

Collective memory · Convergence (economics · Divergence (linguistics · Economics · Linguistics · Political science · Sociology · History · Literature, Magical Realism, García Márquez · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies

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