Politics and Poetry in the Controversy about Identities in Neuquén

Abstract

In this article we analyze some aesthetic expressions concerning the dispute over the forms of identity in Neuquén province (“neuquinidad”), which were produced at different times throughout fifty years: from the moment Neuquén became a province to the aftermath of the assassination of Carlos Fuentealba, in 2007. By reading selected poems, we find that they correspond to three
modes of “neuquinidad” and we develop a timeline to define each context and each identity form. Thus, we describe a primitive neuquinidad, as it is expressed in a poem of 1956, and we look into the tensions between an official neuquinidad –penned in a song– and an identity that emerges from the margins: the alternative or rebellious neuquinidad. In short, we hold: a) that the primitive neuquinidad is related to the moment when the provincial constitution is being drafted as an utopian enclave of social harmony; b) that the official neuquinidad, grown from within the State, be it during times of dictatorships or under constitutional administrations, embodies a reactionary identity, forged in the struggles against outsiders; and c) that the rebellious or alternative neuquinidad, linked to a counter-culture of protest, assumes a class
position and manifests itself as an anti-systemic horizon.