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En busca de lo popular en el proceso de construccion de la nacion

Salinas Zabalaga, Jaime Omar
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0799-1874
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468926666

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
This dissertation analyzes the emergence of the popular in the building of the Bolivian nation in three types of texts and in three moments of the nineteenth century: a diary of the wars of the independence (1814-1825), artisan newspapers in the second half of the century (1849-1900), and a foundational novel (1885). This research project explores not only the role played by the popular sectors in the national building process, but most of all the popular culture as a possibility to rethink the nation. That is to say that the popular can be conceived as a space in which the nation can be rethought. In this regard, “En busca de lo popular en el proceso de construccion de la nacion” explores the different ways in which the popular was made discursively visible during Bolivia’s nation-building process. The discursive representations of the popular culture and popular sectors in these three different texts allow us to analyze the tense articulation between cultural imaginaries and national projects. In chapter 1, I analyze how the mestizos and indigenous, who fought together in the "montonera" of Sica Sica and Ayopaya, constructed an idea of homeland that was grounded in their cultural connection with the space. In other words, I propose to read the diary of Jose Santos Vargas from the perspective that point out the struggle over the meaning of homeland between the popular forces and the white elite. The discursive representation of the homeland as a lived space made visible the cultural and imaginary connection between the popular forces and their idea of homeland, idea that call into question the representation of homeland defended by the creole elite. In chapter 2, I propose to consider the emergence of the artisan newspapers not only as a way that allow mestizos to participate in the public sphere but, above all, to reshape their political identity. I demonstrate that the journalistic production situated the mestizos artisans as a cultural and political mediators between the white upper classes and the popular sectors and, moreover made them play a key role in the consolidation of the liberal state. In chapter 3, I demonstrate that the liberal project that the Aguirre's foundational novel supports is in clear tension with the cultural memory and the popular culture that the novel tries to subordinate to this ideal nation. If a foundational novel has to legitimate a mythic origin of a nation that is possible only when its ideological implications are naturalized, the problem emerge when at the core of this project the cultural memory and the popular sectors subvert from within the liberal project. As a result, the discursive representation of the popular culture call into question the ideal of culture, society and national subject that the novel supports, allowing in such way to rethink the nation from these misencounters. In other words, I propose that the popular should not only be seen as a space of resistance but as a voice that is actively and subversively involved in the national building process . The perspective adopted in this research project avoids dichotomous closures and considers the popular as a space of economic, symbolic, and political struggle where different social sectors adopt strategies of resistance, agency, and co-optation, not only to defend their own interests but most of all, to claim their right to play an active role in the construction of the nation-state . In this regard, the dissertation conceives of the popular as a space where the different sectors of the society strive for power over the discourses that are shaping the nation. From this perspective I point to the ideologies that grounded and legitimated projects of homogenization of spaces and subjects in cultural production about and for popular sectors. At the same time, I emphasize the presence of contradictions within such ideologies due to cultural differences. My research explores not only the discourses of the popular sectors that call into question how they were represented and placed in the modern project of the nation by the elites, but also how the elites had to incorporate the popular, cultural memory and the popular sectors of society into the liberal national project. At the core, the dissertation sets out to elucidate the encounters and missed encounters between the modern projects that shape the state and nation throughout the nineteenth century as well as cultural memories and popular practices. The study contributes to debates about Bolivian and Latin American nationhood by foregrounding the active role played by popular culture and popular sectors in giving shape to their modernity.
Fernando Unzueta (Advisor)
Laura Podalsky (Committee Member)
Ana del Sarto (Committee Member)
420 p.
Latin American Literature
Popular culture, Literature, Nation, Bolivia

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Salinas Zabalaga, J. O. (2016). En busca de lo popular en el proceso de construccion de la nacion [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468926666

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Salinas Zabalaga, Jaime. En busca de lo popular en el proceso de construccion de la nacion. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468926666.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Salinas Zabalaga, Jaime. "En busca de lo popular en el proceso de construccion de la nacion." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468926666

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1468926666
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.