Flamenco y españolidad en la Argentina de 1936–1959

The discourse on flamenco in Argentina in the period between 1936 and 1959 inevitably identified it with a kind of Spanish essence, even though flamenco is, both in its genesis and in its expressive formulas, a highly localised art, originating in specific southern peninsular territories among certain social sectors. While this identitarian imaginary had been widespread in Spain and abroad since the emergence of flamenco, it is important to observe how it was formulated outside Spain, in a context where there was a large number of Spanish migrants. Drawing on documents from that period—entertainment advertising, newspaper articles, magazines and bulletins from Spanish associations, among others—as well as some testimonies, significant cases of this type of discourse are demonstrated and examined, and the main factors sustaining this imaginary are discussed. The article also analyses how various flamenco performers, and artists in general, expressed resistance to it. This resistance was expressed not in terms that referred conventionally or directly to a political consciousness or to a patrimonial claim of flamenco as an Andalusian cultural expression, but in the hidden language of the emotional community of flamencos.