Cómo estar ausente en todas partes: Los viajes de José Ingenieros

Abstract: José Ingenieros (1877–1925), the Argentine psychiatrist born in Italy, was part of the "cultural coalition of the new liberal state" (Ludmer 35). However, because of his migrant status, he faced a nationalistic elite that did not fully accept him. In 1905, Ingenieros traveled to Europe to participate in the International Congress of Psychology. By analyzing his crónicas de viaje and his correspondence, this essay explores his use of simulation to market himself and rub shoulders with Enrico Ferri and Cesare Lombroso. On this travel, two perspectives come together: the European that sees him as Argentine, and the Argentine that sees him as a migrant. Ingenieros's writing plays with these two perspectives, and in a paradoxical way, embodies the idea that one must be a foreigner to truly be successful in Argentina. This trip is compared to his second: in 1911, Ingenieros closed his doctor's office, self-exiled, and wrote El hombre mediocre (1913), in which he defined the destiny of men of genius as "being absent everywhere" (305). By reading his correspondence and El hombre mediocre , this essay analyzes Ingenieros as the Italian migrant who travels to Europe not simply to return to his lost homeland, but as a Latin American who has been shaped by disappointment. In this second trip, Ingenieros represents, also paradoxically, that being a Latin American means living in the periphery and inhabiting failure.