Representations of Patagonia in the Argentine Press of the 1930's. Chroniclers, Reporters and Travel Writers in Mass and Commercial Journalism

Abstract

The mass and popular press of the thirties is one of the areas in which the representations of Patagonia and southern Argentina are taken up and updated. Indeed, a renewed presence of travelers and journalists who rewrite the Patagonian territory can be seen in the publications of that time: González Tuñón and Arturo Mom, in Crítica; Roberto Arlt in El Mundo, Soiza Reilly in Caras y Caretas and various articles that appeared in the women's magazine El Hogar. This paper selects some of these collaborations and analyzes how diverse imaginaries and «knowledge» about Patagonia are reconfigured there to crystallize in the written reelaboration of certain main figures. Patagonia as a promising but distant and distant space, which must be Argentinized; Patagonia and the south as a marvelous territory, a propitious terrain for the adventurous and the abject, the opposite of the conventional order. In this reconfiguration, in addition to the fact that the texts enter a fluctuating dialogue with certain state projects of the time (from which they also distance themselves) and with an extensive library, the impact of the forms of intervention of the commercial press and its search for an effective impact on the reading public is crucial.