Book Description
Examining the experiences of peasants and peons, or paysanos, in the Buenos Aires province during Juan Manuel de Rosas’s dictatorial regime (1829–1852), Wandering Paysanos recovers a multiplicity of subaltern voices that speak about issues of paramount importance for the history of postindependence Argentina: markets, legal authority, politics, and public memory. The distinguished Argentine historian Ricardo D. Salvatore situates the paysanos as mobile job-seekers within an expanding, competitive economy as he highlights the points of contention between the peasants and the state: questions of military service, crime, and punishment. He asserts that only through a reconstruction of the different subjectivities of paysanos—-as workers, citizens, soldiers, and family members—can a new understanding of postindependence Argentina be acheived. Drawing extensively on judicial and military records, Salvatore reveals the state’s files on individual prisoners and recruits to be surprisingly full of personal stories directly solicited from paysanos. While consistently attentive to the fragmented and mediated nature of these archival sources, he chronicles how peons and peasants spoke to power figures—judges, police officers, and military chiefs—about issues central to their lives as well as to the nation-in-formation. They told about their wanderings across the countryside in search of salaried work, their engagement with the Federalist armies, and their families. Their lamentations about unpaid labor, disrespectful government officials, the meaning of poverty, and the dignity of work provide vital insights into the formation of the Argentine nation. Wandering Paysanos discloses a complex world until now obscured—that of rural Argentine subalterns confronting the state.

About the Author
Ricardo D. Salvatore is Professor of Modern History at Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires. He is coeditor of Crime and Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society since Late Colonial Times and Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.–Latin American Relations, both published by Duke University Press.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A pioneering examination of the experiences of peasants and peons, or paysanos, in the Buenos Aires province during Juan Manuel de Rosas's regime (1829-1852), Wandering Paysanos is one of the first studies to consider Argentina's history from a subalternist perspective. The distinguished Argentine historian Ricardo D. Salvatore situates the paysanos as mobile job seekers within an expanding, competitive economy as he highlights the points of contention between the peasants and the state: questions of military service, patriotism, crime, and punishment. He argues that only through a reconstruction of the different subjectivities of paysanos - as workers, citizens, soldiers, and family members - can a new understanding of postindependence Argentina be achieved.

SYNOPSIS

Examining the experiences of peasants and peons, or paysanos, in the Buenos Aires province during Juan Manuel de Rosas's dictatorial regime (1829-1852), Wandering Paysanos recovers a multiplicity of subaltern voices that speak about issues of paramount importance for the history of postindependence Argentina: markets, legal authority, politics, and public memory. The distinguished Argentine historian Ricardo D. Salvatore situates the paysanos as mobile job-seekers within an expanding, competitive economy as he highlights the points of contention between the peasants and the state: questions of military service, crime, and punishment. He asserts that only through a reconstruction of the different subjectivities of paysanos--as workers, citizens, soldiers, and family members-can a new understanding of postindependence Argentina be acheived.

Drawing extensively on judicial and military records, Salvatore reveals the state's files on individual prisoners and recruits to be surprisingly full of personal stories directly solicited from paysanos. While consistently attentive to the fragmented and mediated nature of these archival sources, he chronicles how peons and peasants spoke to power figures-judges, police officers, and military chiefs-about issues central to their lives as well as to the nation-in-formation. They told about their wanderings across the countryside in search of salaried work, their engagement with the Federalist armies, and their families. Their lamentations about unpaid labor, disrespectful government officials, the meaning of poverty, and the dignity of work provide vital insights into the formation of the Argentine nation. Wandering Paysanos discloses a complex world until now obscured-that of rural Argentine subalterns confronting the state.