Construcción de las identidades latinoamericanas

The deceptively simple concept of Latin America as a unified space inevitably breaks down upon closer inspection. This compilation of provocative and intriguing essays seeks to disentangle a number of attempts by nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century intellectuals to define the elusive commonalities of the region. Although it offers few general conclusions, the volume highlights the diverse and complex iterations of latinoamericanismo that developed in the century after independence and provides an introduction to the cultural history of Latin American transnational identities.The book, roughly chronological, begins with two chapters discussing the minutes of professional meetings over the course of the nineteenth century. In the first, Aimer Granados recounts the ties between international politics and the linguistic transformation of americanos into hispanoamericanos during a series of international congresses beginning in Panama in 1826 and ending in Lima four decades later. While hispanoamerica had already become an accepted term by the mid – nineteenth century, increasing French cultural hegemony inspired the former Spanish colonies to reimagine themselves as part of a growing “Latin” America. This process is taken up in detail in Esther Aillón Soria’s account of the rise of an extended cultural exchange between the two regions during the fin de siècle. This conversation, facilitated by the émigré population in Paris, gave rise to numerous academic collaborations, particularly between French and Mexican scientists and geographers.The book then shifts from professional journals and diplomatic minutes to portraits of individuals whose writings incorporated latinoamericanista discourse. While stars such as José Martí, José Enrique Rodó, or José Vasconcelos are referenced, these essays avoid repackaging the conventional wisdom and instead develop nuanced interpretations of this integrationist phraseology in order to evoke their conceptual complexity. Manuel Vargas, for instance, interrogates Vasconcelos’s well-known concept of the raza cósmica by relating it to a globalized vision of biological determinism rooted in Gregor Mendel and in the racialized theories of nutrition commonly espoused in Mexico in the late nineteenth century by Francisco Bulnes. Others focus on the impact of international events on a single individual’s changing views. Alexandra Pita González, for example, discusses Costa Rican Joaquín García Monge, whose review Repertorio Americano moved from a pan-American flirtation with the United States to staunch Hispanoamericanism during the Spanish Civil War and eventually adopted inter-Americanism once Franco’s victory was assured. Other chapters emphasize the impact of personal conditions — for example, Alicia Gil Lázaro’s compelling chapter on Francisco García Calderón, the Peruvian exile whose many years in Paris colored his call for elevating the nation’s prospects by engaging its neighbors. Most chapters also provide a useful introduction to the lives of these sometimes obscure figures, making the work more accessible to a reader unfamiliar with the subject.While these accounts provide great insight into the careers and ideas of these individuals, the literary and international focus could at times be amplified by greater consideration of the national context. For example, Luis Arturo Torres Rojo — in an otherwise excellent discussion of the developing distinctions between the concepts of Indoamerica in the thought of Peruvians Víctor Raul Haya de la Torre and José Carlos Mariátegui — fails to consider the state-sponsored Hispanism that Leguía adopted during the oncenio, which served as a negative example as much as the Mexican Revolution’s indigenismo served as a beacon. Related issues concern the lack of attention to the parallel rise of conservative constructions of transnational identities often hearkening back to Spanish models, as well as the influence of Spain and France on this process. Finally, the book would have been better balanced had there been a chapter on Brazil to highlight the other major country linked with Spanish America through the adoption of the new French terminology.These criticisms aside, this book is a welcome addition to the literature on a subject that is still only beginning to be researched in earnest. One hopes that the many questions raised here will encourage further studies into one of the more intriguing questions of current scholarship on Latin American history, namely, the rise of a continental consciousness as nuanced and elusive as the region itself

Art · Art history · Garcia · Hegemony · Humanities · Independence (probability theory) · Latin Americans · Political science · Politics · Population · Portrait · Sociology · Classics · Demography · History · Latin American Cultural Politics · Law

• Generational Identity, Values, and Sense of Belonging

  Open Access•Gabisel Barsallo Alvarado, Victor Ortiz et al.•Social Sciences•2024

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