Demonic Othernesses in Argentine politics. A journey through the state construction of otherness in Argentine history during the period of national organization (1860-1910) and the ‘National Reorganization Process’ (1976-1983) and the democratic transitio

Abstract

In the process of social and identity construction, otherness can be understood, defended or stigmatized. In this paper, I will address how difference was demonized throughout Argentine history. To this end, I will divide the analysis into two moments: the national organization and the national reorganization: the first one comprises the process of conformation of the national State (which we can locate between 1860 - 1910) in which we find, on the one hand, an ethnic otherness (indigenous and gauchos) and from 1900 onwards a political otherness (anarchism). In a second moment, we place the analysis of the process of civic-military dictatorship that proclaimed itself ‘process of national reorganization’ (1976-1983). In this period, we see a political otherness that constructs the image of the subversive criminal as an enemy of society. And finally, in the democratic transition (1983-1989) ‘the two demons’ as an explanation of what happened and the conformation of democracy in a new status quo. For this analysis, documentary, legislative and audiovisual sources will be analyzed in order to analyze from the public and political spheres how these models of alterities were constructed. The discursive and political way of constructing the negative other in the two processes considered foundational/foundational of the State will be analyzed. In this sense, we will analyze the use of expressions of demonization and otherness in the processes of organization/reorganization that generated constructs of political and physical violence on social collectives, in order to expel them from this budding nation.