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Cada uno en su sitio y cada cosa en su lugar. Imaginarios de desigualdad en America Central (1870-1900)

Arroyo Calderon, Patricia
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1437570606

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
This dissertation analyzes the construction of a pervasive social imaginary of unequal order in Central America between 1870 and 1900. This period was crucial in the region, which underwent a series of economic, political, and social reforms that would forever transform the natural and social landscapes of the isthmus. Although most of these structural changes have already been studied, it is still unclear how literary and cultural production intersected with the liberal elites' endeavors of social classification, economic modernization, and political institutionalization. This dissertation addresses that problem through theoretical elaborations on the social imaginary (Cornelius Castoriadis) and the distribution of the sensible (Jacques Ranciere). I specifically analyze three different types of cultural texts: household economy guides for girls and young women; cuadros costumbristas (sketches of manners); and sentimental novels and theater plays. Part 1 deals with the cultural measures that contributed to a symbolic and material division of public spaces and private spaces, both ruled by the rationale of capitalism. Chapters 1 through 3 study in detail the role of household economy manuals in the dissemination and implementation of the new capitalist logics of productivity, rationalization, and accumulation across the domestic or private spaces. Chapter 1 analyzes how these cultural texts created two opposing female archetypes: the "economic woman" or "productive housewife", figured as an agent of domestic modernization, and the "abject servant", a subaltern subject that would undergo a set of new domestic policies of surveillance, discipline, and exploitation. Chapter 2 addresses the role of the productive housewives in the implementation of new modes of regulation of time and desire within the urban households, while Chapter 3 covers the rearrangements in domestic spaces brought by the new concepts of comfort and hygiene. Part 2 deals with the simultaneous reorganization of the political spaces around the axis of inequality, hierarchy, and exclusion of the indigenous peoples, women, and the popular classes. Chapter 4 addresses the role of costumbrista literature in the construction of a model of distribution of the sensible that symbolically expelled the popular classes and indigenous peoples from the boundaries of society. Chapter 5 studies how the poetics of sentimental literature picked up the static imaginary of social order presented by the costumbrista writers and turned it into an archipolitical fantasy whereby political participation would be self-regulated by a set of naturalized dynamics of inclusion/exclusion. In a word, this dissertation engages with the debates around Central American imaginaries of modernity and processes of modernization; reassesses the pervasiveness of economic, social, and political practices of discrimination and exclusion throughout the isthmus; and establishes the fundamental role played by women's household administration and cultural production in the establishment of a social imaginary based upon the capitalist logics of productivity, rationalization, and accumulation.
Abril Trigo (Advisor)
Ana Del Sarto (Committee Member)
Fernando Unzueta (Committee Member)
Marta Elena Casaus Arzu (Committee Member)
436 p.
Latin American History; Latin American Literature; Latin American Studies
Central America; Latin American Cultural Studies; Latin American Literature; Latin American Studies; social imaginaries; women literature; women studies; visual culture; costumbrismo; sentimental literature; household economy

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Arroyo Calderon, P. (2015). Cada uno en su sitio y cada cosa en su lugar. Imaginarios de desigualdad en America Central (1870-1900) [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1437570606

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Arroyo Calderon, Patricia. Cada uno en su sitio y cada cosa en su lugar. Imaginarios de desigualdad en America Central (1870-1900). 2015. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1437570606.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Arroyo Calderon, Patricia. "Cada uno en su sitio y cada cosa en su lugar. Imaginarios de desigualdad en America Central (1870-1900)." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1437570606

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1437570606
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.