Indigenism and blanquitude in the racist order of the nation

Abstract

In this article, I propose to address the complexity of the Indianist critique of colonialism based on the problem of race/racism that constitutes modern Latin American nations. I proceed as follows: first, I briefly approach Reinaguian Indianism to indicate a problem and, at the same time, a place shared by Latin American indigenism: the racial question linked to the "national problem". Secondly, I evoke Bolívar Echeverría´s contribution on the racism of whiteness (blanquitud and blancura) which constitute modern nations. Third, I link both racist variants (blancura and blanquitud) with the indigenisms, in particular with four indigenist currents of the first half of the 20th century as Henri Favre puts it, with whom I test a critical interlocution. Finally, as a conclusion, I delimit a hypothesis on the indigenisms present in Argentina, arguing that there is a multicultural neoindigenism typical of a "tolerant racism", not split from a virulent racism, which has its roots in the social Darwinism of the XIXth and early XXth centuries.