The Spirit of the North: Anthropology and Regionalism in Argentina’s Northwest, 1900–40

This paper explores regionalism in Argentina's Northwest through a discussion of anthropologists' visions of the region's cultural identity.  Anthropologists in the Northwest saw the region's indigenous cultures as a rich cultural heritage, and often as an important part of the present that made the Northwest unique and the seat of "true" Argentine culture.  By contrast, archaeologists from Buenos Aires saw the Northwest as an empty "space," where a glorious ancient indigenous past had been followed by a degenerate present that required intervention from the modern capital city.  This paper examines Northwestern regionalism as it arose in the early 20th century in response to porteno visions of a Northwest in need of their civilizing aid.