Chilean Identity Research Articles

Hero's Legacy: Martial Strength and Race in Republican Chile

This article examines the Roto Chileno war memorial in downtown Santiago as a complex site of Chilean identity making in the republican era. Conflating two separate nineteenth-century military victories over the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru, the memorial was a physical manifestation of an intricate process of identity construction that celebrated the mestizo heritage of average citizen-soldiers while also emphasizing the idea that Chileans were racially superior compared to other South American nations. The memorial being dedicated specifically to the roto, a mutable racialized term that can be perceived as pejorative even in the present, is therefore an especially evocative example of how this conceptual combination was visually rendered to access elements of white identity. Using fine art media coverage, this article highlights the entangled relationship between memory, nationalism, and race in late nineteenth-century Latin America to consider the role that militarism and masculinity play in the construction of whiteness.

#VoyYVuelvo: Performances of Chilean identity and cultural memory on Instagram after Nicanor Parra's death

This paper examines an analysis carried out of the mediations and remediations of Nicanor Parra’s image and poetry online, focusing on how digital methods can be used for qualitative analysis, their relevance for current research, as well as some ethical considerations. Nicanor Parra was a revolutionary Chilean poet, a national icon whose death in 2018 represented a significant memory site where contemporary understandings of Chilean identity can be studied. Through digital qualitative methods, I traced the use of the hashtag #nicanorparra after his death. The data was analysed using discourse analysis, both textual and visual, to properly weigh the mix of images and captions that Instagram posts offer and interpret how these ‘media of memory’ articulate discourses around Chilean identity and memory today. The posts constructed a figure of Parra akin to a modern prophet, whose message of “anti-ness” called on users to act on issues such as economic inequality and the impact of industrial development on the country's environment. Through Parra's poetry, digitally expressed through vernacular creativity, a collective mnemonic imagination sketches expectations for Chile, which are particularly crucial after the massive protests demanding profound political and economic change of 2019.

Tres modalidades de alegoría nacional en las narraciones chilenas del noventa y el dos mil

En este articulo se argumenta a favor de la alegoria nacional como una lectura pertinente y significativa para los textos narrativos escritos en Chile durante las decadas del noventa y el dos mil. Discute, en primer lugar, las objeciones teoricas y criticas que rechazan la vigencia de la identidad nacional en el contexto posmoderno y posdictatorial. Luego elabora el concepto de alegoria nacional propuesto por Fredric Jameson, de manera que pueda rescatarse las posibilidades de lectura que ofrece evitando sus imposiciones autoritarias. Finalmente postula e ilustra tres modalidades mediante las cuales las narraciones chilenas del periodo alegorizan la nacion: el romance nacional, la alegoria estamental y la alegoria de la temporalidad.

Andean colors: A colorimetric registration in pre‐Columbian textiles from Northern Chile

AbstractThis article shows the colorimetric data obtained from pre‐Columbian northern Chilean textiles and their subsequent analysis for the construction of a color chart. As part of a more extensive study investigating the fundamental pillars of the textile language associated with pre‐Columbian weaves, a registration of colorimetric data was carried out on 42 textile pieces with a total of 203 colors mostly provided by the Chilean Museum of Pre‐Columbian Art. The results are presented in terms of CIELAB coordinates. The colors obtained showed a considerable percentage of reds and browns. The recorded values can contribute to the preservation of cultural heritage and the esthetics of current Chilean identity as they can be used in new industries, contexts, and applications. Subsequently, the colorimetric data obtained could be transferred to other color systems, so that users from different sectors might have access to this cultural legacy, understanding the limitations of color production in mixed media.

Tony Manero, de Pablo Larrain: moda e alienação

Este artigo procura analisar o filme Tony Manero, de Pablo Larrain, a partir do fenômeno da moda, deslocando assim a questão da identidade chilena e da indústria cultural estadunidense, que frequentemente são considerados elementos centrais na interpretação da obra, e colocando o foco na forma inquietante a partir da qual Raul, o protagonista do filme, participa de maneira isolada e patológica da febre disco. A partir da análise fílmica, procuraremos mostrar que o que há de inquietante e crítico em Tony Manero não é a imitação de um suposto modelo estadunidense no contexto da ditadura chilena, mas a aceitação de Raul como modelo entre seus próprios colegas. Para isso, além da análise fílmica, nossa metodologia proporá considerações sobre a moda e o fenômeno disco, bem como uma análise sobre o filme referência Embalos de Sábado a Noite.

Del Chile de los triunfos morales al “Chile, país ganador”. La identidad nacional y la selección chilena de fútbol durante la Dictadura Militar (1973-1989)

Through the study of the Chilean National Football Team, this article analyzes the impact of the installation of the culture of the free market within the sphere of Chilean identity, during the Military Dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet. How was Chilean identity transformed during this process? To answer this question, the social conception of football during the dictatorship will be compared with the concept of the sport that predominated prior to the dictatorship. Thus, and by means of analyzing the discourse of the sports press, it concludes that between 1973 and 1989 the social conception of football changed from a vision in which moral triumphs were appreciated to a conception in which competitive values became hegemonic, centered first and foremost on victory in football. This transition likewise expresses a profound mutation in the expectations, values and the ethical vision and sense of identity of the Chilean people.

La política chilena hacia Bolivia, 1900-1930: la constitución de un discurso estructural

This article analyzes the constitution of international discourse about the conflict of Chile and Bolivia Treaty of 1904, which set the following relations between the two countries. Is selected the period 1900-1930, because it corresponds to the decades during which Chile stabilized its relations with the three neighboring countries through treaties of 1902, 1904 and 1929. The hypothesis proposed in this paper is that during this period the speech and Chilean politics were consolidated. On the one hand, this speech was prepared under a rational and legal approach, which is based on a deeper process and associated withthe establishment of the Chilean identity, whose components catalyzed with the Pacific War. Furthermore, both identity and address, Gritty truths became, whose validity has remained to the present. The preparation of this work is based on the annual report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, the main source informs us about this speech and politics to which it gave rise.

EXPERIMENTACIÓN ESCRITURAL Y AMBIGÜEDAD GENÉRICA COMO ESTRATEGIAS DE MUTACIÓN TEXTUAL EN MI PAÍS INVENTADO DE ISABEL ALLENDE

This paper analizes Mi pais inventado from Isabel Allende (2003) as a case of textual mutation from chilean identity essay, demonstrated in the progress of a...

Chilean Children’s Literature and National Identity: Post-Dictatorship Discourses of Chileanness Built through the Representation of Indigenous People

This paper analyzes images of aboriginality created in Chilean narratives for children, and argues that these images try to instill contemporary ideas of national identity. The books Tres Príncipes [Three Princes] (1994) and Flora, Cuentos Andinos [Flora, Andean tales] (2008) are closely examined, showing how cultural practices and geographical motifs drive the renovated, post-dictatorship discourses of Chilean identity.

¿Emprendimiento moral en la identidad chilena? Análisis sociológico sobre clases sociales y televisión

This article contributes to the analysis of Chilean identity and television. There are studies which point out that the moral entrepreneurship function is a constitutive part of the high class, and they also show that the lower class lacks it completely. Unlike these studies it is argued, through an empirical analysis, the following: Firstly; the high class, according to logical traditionalism, displays moral entrepreneurship behaviors only at the private sphere. Secondly, the lower class, according to the dual conscience concept suggested by Fanon, performs a moral entrepreneurship function at the public sphere as a strategy to whitening its discourse. Thirdly, unlike high class people, members of lower class believe that television consumption causes negative effects in its audience. Since there is a change on how this function is performed when the television is the focus of analysis, it is suggested to theoretically review the concept of moral entrepreneurship. Second, it also proposed to deepen the analysis of which social mechanisms inhibit or trigger the function of moral entrepreneurship.

LAS “IDENTIDADES” DE CHILE EN SUS RELACIONES INTERNACIONALES. ¿ENTRE EL PARADIGMA COMERCIALISTA Y EL TERRITORIALISTA?

Este trabajo analiza diferentes perspectivas academicas y politicas que reconocen en Chile una “identidad” fuertemente signada por los logros comerciales internacionales. Su apertura al mundo, factores institucionales y politicos que aseguraron gobernabilidad y continuidad en el diseno de su insercion internacional, lo han diferenciado del “vecindario”, es decir, la region a la que suele percibirse como inestable. Esa clara adscripcion al paradigma comercialista, sin embargo, no significa que hayan perdido relevancia en su Politica Exterior las cuestiones territoriales, por lo cual la identidad chilena se construye entre uno y otro modelo.

As dificuldades de implementação da Via Chilena ao Socialismo: análise do impacto de três propostas econômicas

This article aims to establish a relationship between the social-political impact of three economic proposals by Unidad Popular and the challenges faced by Salvador Allende’s government to implement the Chilean Way to Socialism. For that purpose it makes use of Unidad Popular’s Government Program and interviews with Allende’s ex-ministers. It also analyzes the proposals of copper nationalization, agrarian reform and the socialization of private properties, since they reflect the economic actions of an anti-capitalist ideology. Each proposal had a different yet complementary social, political and economic impact that influenced in different ways the performance of the implementation of socialism in Chile in the 1970s. The copper privatization had a low impact, the agrarian reform a medium one and the socialization a high impact. The latter was the most sensitive due to its accentuated ideological character. The copper privatization was widely accepted, possibly due to the relationship between mining and the Chilean identity. The agrarian reform experienced social and political obstacles that hindered its full execution, but was already present in the Christian-Democrat project and its direct impacts were restricted to the countryside. The constitution of the social area, formed by socialized companies, could not be implemented. The actions were limited to the existing laws that granted the individual right to private property of the means of production. Nevertheless, the expropriations carried out worsened the social and political conflicts, increased the discontentment among the elites and hampered the continuation of the Chilean Way to Socialism. Key words: Chilean Way to Socialism, Salvador Allende, left wing government.

Mexican or Chilean: Mexican Ranchera Music and Nationalism in Chile

Despite its focus on Mexican themes, imagery, and traditions, Mexican ranchera music has been among the most popular musical styles in central and southern Chile since the first half of the twentieth century. Utilizing evidence from Chilean periodicals and oral histories, this essay presents an analysis of the relationship between the popularity of ranchera music and Chilean identity. It asserts that a combination of political and commercial ties between Mexico and Chile, similarities between rural life in the two countries, and musical compatibility among Mexican rancheras and rural Chilean folk music facilitated the spread of ranchera music throughout the Chilean countryside. Despite the Chilean public's widespread embrace of ranchera, this foreign music did not lead to a transnational identity, but, instead, rancheras became incorporated into Chilean nationalist sentiments.

A psychosocial interpretation of political violence: Chile 1970–1973

The military coup of 1973 is the most important event in Chilean history of the 20th century. Thus far it has been explained only in political and economic terms, and, therefore, violence has been understood as strategic. Understanding the cruelty, indiscriminate torture and body mutilations of the coup, however, requires a different analytical perspective. On the basis of a discourse analysis of the Chilean press during the years that preceded the coup, and using the psychoanalytic concept of fantasy, I put forth a psychosocial interpretation in which subjectivity, desire and the limits of the social are central. My research has led me to conclude that anti-Communism and the violence that followed the coup, more than expressing a political and economic conflict, condensed a deeper dynamic of fear and hatred: fear of social disintegration – associated with the feminization of Chilean society – and hatred of the disavowed aspects of Chilean identity. The brutality of the violence aimed not only to repress left-wing political activists, but also to ‘extirpate from the Chilean soul’ a devil that was destroying the nation, to punish a society for having allowed this to happen, and to restore a patriarchal social order.

Chile's (Inter)National Identities: Framing the Relations with Bolivia and Peru

National identities play a significant role in Latin American international relations. They affect the ways in which policy‐makers view themselves and others, as well as influencing the ways in which their policies are ‘received’ abroad. In this way, identities create opportunities and constraints for foreign policy‐making, framing the relations between Latin American countries. The author argues that, since 1990, three main patterns of Chilean identity recently affected the country's relations with its northern neighbours Bolivia and Peru: a ‘neoliberal identity’, a ‘legalistic identity’ and a ‘progressive identity’. These three patterns of identity have created opportunities for cooperation as well as causes for conflict.

"El paisaje aquí tiene un encanto fresco y poético": Las bellezas del sur de Chile y la construcción de la nación turística

Este artículo se pregunta por el papel que el turismo ha cumplido en el establecimiento de un consenso que califica al sur de Chile como un lugar bello. El interés de este trabajo está puesto sobre las miradas de los turistas, quienes a lo largo de la primera mitad del siglo XX recalificaron la antigua y misteriosa “selva araucana” para convertirla en lo que se denominó como la “Suiza chilena”. Se propone que la actividad de los turistas que se dirigieron hacia la Araucanía y la región de Los Lagos estableció nuevas miradas sobre el territorio que configuraron un sentimiento de orgullo por los valores estéticos de la naturaleza. Ese “nacionalismo paisajístico”, transversal a todas las sensibilidades ideológicas, constituye un aspecto de importancia central en la identidad chilena contemporánea.

<i>Those that Fly without Wings: Music and Dance in a Chilean Immigrant Community</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Those that Fly without Wings: Music and Dance in a Chilean Immigrant Community Molly White Jan Sverre Knudsen. Those that Fly without Wings: Music and Dance in a Chilean Immigrant Community. Oslo: Unipub AS/Oslo Academic Press, 2006. 234 pp. ISBN: 8274772423. Jan Sverre Knudsen’s study comes out of his own doctoral dissertation from the University of Oslo, Faculty of Arts, Department of Music and Theater, 2004, and is written predominantly in English. The text consists of nine chapters, notes, black-and-white reprints of photos of research participants, a number of graphs, quotes from research participants in English and either Spanish or Norwegian, a glossary of Chilean terms, references, and four appendices, one in Spanish and three in Norwegian, pointing to Knudsen’s attempt to include potential readers for whom those languages are primary. Knudsen presents the main subject of the book in the first chapter: the role of music and dance activity in the “negotiation and construction of immigrant identity” (1), in particular relating to the Casa de Cultura, founded by Chilean immigrants in Oslo in 1994. He is interested in the ways in which participants at the Casa de Cultura construct meaning in relation to music and dance and the complexities surrounding identity for first- and second-generation Chileans in the increasingly mul-ticultural Oslo. In Chapter 2, Knudsen discusses his approach to research and his natural tendency toward a social constructionist theory. Chapter 3 discloses his research methodology, which I found to be freshly self-reflective. He states: The “researcher’s gaze” is concentrated upon the actors: their actions and experiences, their reflections and interpretations. At the same time [End Page 275] I recognize my own influence on the research process and the significance of my personal background. I regard the construction of knowledge as an interactive process, taking place between the researcher and the research participant (3). Chapter 4 paints a requisite historical picture of Chilean music as it is understood in the Chilean immigrant community in Oslo, breaking it down into four groups: música andina, folklore criollo, canción comprometida (committed or political song), and música tropical. Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 make up the meat of this study. Chapter 5 gives a history of the Chilean community in Oslo, discussing the start of the Casa de Cultura, and statistical material regarding migration from Chile in two separate waves: first, a political wave of refugees in 1973 after the coup d’état, and then a wave of economic refugees in 1988 and 1989 after the referendum that ended Pinochet’s dictatorship. Knudsen includes here a brief discussion of the positive role of the Norwegian ambassador to Chile during the dictatorship, Frode Nilsen, who was apparently responsible for saving the lives of many militant resistant party members by ensuring their safe passage to, and subsequent residence in, Norway. Chapter 6 focuses on dance forms such as salsa, cumbia, and cueca at the Casa Cultural in Oslo. Knudsen discusses issues of gender, sexuality, and the relationship between Chileans and the majority society in the Latin dance scene, and also addresses the reinvented tradition of dancing cueca outside of Chile (and in the cooler Scandinavian climate) in the section titled Dancing cueca “with your coat on” (124). Here, Knudsen reviews the prevailing research on the various possible backgrounds of the cueca from different scholars such as Carlos Vega (1947), Pablo Garrido (1979), Samuel Claro Valdés (1994), and Mario Rojas (2001), concluding that there is a general tendency to stamp out foreign influence so that the cueca is deemed purely Chilean (131). During the dictatorship, the cueca was used as a symbol of national identity, and what was once a variety of styles and forms of the song/ dance was boiled down to a single and official Cueca, closely resembling that of Chile’s central region in costume and style, whereby Pinochet sought to create a sense of nationhood, a quintessential Chilean identity. It is no wonder that today Chileans in Chile and outside (in “Region IX”), have such varied associations and feelings toward the cueca, but there is no question that it represents a link of some kind to Chile...

Betwixt and Between: Finding Home Again in Chilean Returnee Literature

Exile has historically been considered a temporary event that ends once the return home is realized, putting to an end the pain of living away from home with the restoration of feeling whole. Yet for many returnees, the return home failed to restore a sense of place and belonging. Although some exiles physically returned to the place called home, they continued to imagine other spaces, cultures and languages, and were oftentimes unable to reemerge with their original community. Transitional entities, returnees live caught betwixt and between the positions assigned by custom and convention. Yet it is from or within this very schism that some returnees move beyond the sentiments of loss and disappointment generally associated with exile and the return to render their dislocation as a positive space in which they can foster and explore new identities. Exemplified in three narratives written at the close of the twentieth-century, Ariel Dorfman’s memoir Heading South, Looking North (1997), Antonio Skármeta’s novel Match Ball (1989), and Alberto Fuguet’s work Mala onda (1991) demonstrate how ambiguity and displacement as influenced by the return from exile positively affect the (re)negotiation of belonging, location, and, most importantly, Chilean identity.

Changes in Chilean identity: thirty years after the military coup

ABSTRACT. The objective of this article is to explore whether events, starting with the 1973 military coup and ocurring during the seventeen‐year‐long dictatorship, have caused or influenced important changes in the Chilean national identity. After a brief theoretical discussion, an analysis is made of the upheavals that occurred in Chile during the last thirty years seeking to assess what tensions they have introduced within Chilean identity. As a consequence some changes are detected which can be seen at the level of public discourses on Chilean identity with the emergence or rekindling of military‐racial, Catholic and entrepreneurial narratives. But the most important change that Chilean identity has suffered has to do with the development of an internal fracture stemming from the division introduced by the military regime. In so far as the contents of identity are concerned, the article focuses on the decline in acknowledgement of shared symbols of the nation, the persistence of a pervasive collective anxiety, a recurrence of belief in Chilean exceptionalism, and fading respect for politicians and democracy. These aspects are oddly coupled with rising belief in voluntarism and the possibility of sustained economic growth, increased resort to the market rather than political life as the site of recognition, acceptance of malaise as the price of economic progress and a remarkable centrality of human rights issues.

Cultura de masas, reforma y nacionalismo en Chile 1910-1931 (review)

Reviewed by: Cultura de masas, reforma y nacionalismo en Chile 1910-1931 J. Pablo Silva Cultura de masas, reforma y nacionalismo en Chile 1910-1931. By Stefan Rinke. Santiago: Ediciones de la Dirección de Bibliotecas, 2002. Pp. 174. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. This collection of essays is the fruit of tremendous research. Stefan Rinke has reviewed a wide range of primary and secondary sources in order to compile what he calls "a first approximation and basic information" on the topic of "sociocultural change in Chile" (p. 30). Most scholars of Chile would agree with him that nationalism, reform, and mass culture were all central elements of the sociocultural change that took place from 1910 to 1931. And Rinke does an effective job of summarizing the key events and intellectual currents in these three fields. Indeed, the book is filled with interesting observations and anecdotes and draws effectively on the existing literature. But the book coyly refuses to draw the separate threads together and reach a new synthesis. As his title implies, the work is divided into three parts with two essays each on mass culture, reform, and nationalism. The first essay is a somewhat scattered review of different facets of urban life including media, consumption, popular entertainment, and construction and urban planning. The second essay provides a fascinating overview of movies and the movie business in Chile. This chapter offers the book's most original contributions and to my knowledge represents the most accessible and thorough statement on the topic. In Part II, the book presents a chapter on employer paternalism and employee resistance in the mining sector, followed by a chapter on urban reform movements including the women's movement, temperance movement, and movements for health and sanitation. In the last part of the book, Rinke has a chapter on the competing intellectual discourses on Chilean identity and another chapter on economic nationalism. Although these essays on nationalism draw heavily on earlier works, they do offer a systematic comparison of the different intellectual currents that made up the debate over Chilean nationalism at the time. Overall, Rinke's message seems to be that in this period Chilean modernist ambitions did not play out in the way that intellectuals and politicians had hoped. Beyond that, Rinke seems content to provide a set of parallel narratives. Within these narratives he amasses a lot of interesting detail, and future students of Chilean nationalism and movie culture would do well to start with those chapters of this book. But [End Page 174] given Rinke's obvious mastery of the material, one could have hoped for a bit more. Although I was willing to believe that all these narratives were interrelated and mutually reinforcing, I would have appreciated some specifics on the relations between the different spheres of nationalism, social reform, and mass culture. Rinke could have clarified his own position by more clearly situating himself within debates in the secondary literature. J. Pablo Silva Grinnell College Grinnell, Iowa Copyright © 2006 Academy of American Franciscan History