Description
Book SynopsisExamines how museum anthropologists' scientific understandings of indigenous cultures during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries impacted creole Argentines' visions of national heritage and identity.
Trade Review“Carolyne Larson’s revealing of the indigenous foundation of liberal constructions of Argentine national identity is both startling and convincing. She does justice to the native peoples of Argentina and provides a historical context for current museum reforms and cultural repatriation efforts today. With clear and elegant writing supported by a remarkable depth and breadth of sources, Our Indigenous Ancestors is both a must-read for specialists and an accessible delight for the general reader.”
—Steven B. Bunker,University of Alabama
“In this well-researched and carefully written book, Carolyne Larson presents the formation and activities of three ‘ethnographic museums’ in belle epoque Argentina (in La Plata, Buenos Aires, and Tucumán) to explore the ways in which anthropologists and archaeologists placed the indigenous past—conceptualized as ‘deep antiquity’—at the service of various projects of national identity. Museum exhibits contributed to articulating notions of a creole Argentina that, while proud of its indigenous ancestry, put its relationship with living indigenous peoples at a comfortable distance. Tracing the complex interconnections between scientific discourse, museum practices, and national imaginings, Our Indigenous Ancestors succeeds in demonstrating the fascination of urban Argentines with the objects that represented that bygone indigenous past. A must-read for the serious student of modern Argentina.”
—Ricardo D. Salvatore,Florida International University
“This fascinating, deeply nuanced study complicates the commonly held notion that Argentina has imagined itself exclusively as an ethnically European nation. It makes a decisive contribution to our understanding of nation building and race in Latin America.”
—Christina Bueno,Northeastern Illinois University
“In dialogue with the current literature on the role of indigenous peoples in the evolution of the Argentine nation, Our Indigenous Ancestors makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of how a particular interpretation of Argentina's past was produced and consumed in the contradictory interaction between science and colonialism.”
—Florencia E. Mallon,University of Wisconsin–Madison
“Larson’s work will be useful for historians and other cultural studies scholars. While scholars of Argentina will likely be the target audience, those interested in museums and questions about indigenous identity and representation may also find useful information in the text. In the classroom especially, this study can be assigned by chapter to highlight competing ideas of identity and how national histories are shaped by multiple groups in scientific spaces that are hardly neutral.”
—Ryan Edwards Hispanic American Historical Review
“Larson’s excellent study underscores how a nation can both strategically embrace native cultures while simultaneously marginalizing and attempting to destroy them.”
—Christina Bueno Latin American Research Review
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Magic in the Desert: Indigenous Bodies on Display in the Museo de La Plata, 1877–1906
2 Prized Objects: Archaeological Science and Public Actors in Buenos Aires, 1904–1930
3 El Alma del Norte: Northwestern Regionalism and Anthropology, 1900–1940
4 Sensational Discoveries: Heroes, Scandals, and the Popularization of Anthropology
Epilogue: Reflections and Remaining Questions
Notes
Bibliography
Index
