Abstract

GORDILLO, Gastón. Here comes el malón. The Affective Geographies of Argentine Racism. Cuad. antropol. soc. [online]. 2020, n.52, pp.7-35. ISSN 1850-275X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.34096/cas.i52.8899.

This article analyzes the spatial and affective dimensions of whiteness and racism in Argentina by means of a counterpoint between “White Argentina,” understood as the project to create a white national geography, and “el malón” as allegory of the multitudes that threaten this project. Through a spatial and affective reading of Argentine history from the nineteenth century to the Macri government, I show that what most often generates public expressions of racism in Argentina is the emergence into public space of crowds of poor or dark skinned people that evoke the return of “el malón”: the indigenous cavalries that until the end of the nineteenth century put limits on the project of a Europeanized nation. This article shows how fear of el malón has been used to legitimize state terror -which I analyze with the figure of the “white malón”- and how a “mestizo Argentina” that is critical of the racism of White Argentina and feels comfortable with the disjunctive multiplicity of the nation has gained ground in recent decades.

Keywords : Race; Racism; Space; Affect; Argentina.

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