Traces and substrates. The issue of indigenous languages in Argentinian anthropological narratives between 1930 and 1950

Abstract

During the first half of the twentieth century, it is possible to identify different discourses that, referring to the national history of Argentina, present a generalized tendency of situating indigenous peoples within the natural past of the country. However, we find in that tendency certain distinguishing characteristics that are our object of study in this paper. We start from the idea that between the so-called “infamous decade” and the emergence of Peronism there is a reorganization of the temporal schematization of the sciences in Argentina, something that will affect the treatment of indigenous issues. This article focuses specifically on the theoretical approach to the problem area of indigenous languages that takes place between 1930 and 1950, and through different disciplinary areas (history, anthropological sciences and folklore). We demonstrate how these disciplines, through specific epistemological definitions, determine a particular temporal segmentation. To that end, we analyse a series of documents that includes productions by José Imbelloni, Félix Faustino Outes and Juan Alfonso Carrizo, together with institutional management documentation from academic centres in Buenos Aires.