Neighbors: the neighborhood and the city in shaping the local identity

Junín 1943/1944

Abstract

The following work analyzes and describes the way in which from the discourse of the residents of Villa Belgrano and Villa Talleres [two neighborhoods in the city of Junín, northwest of the province of Buenos Aires] they wove and developed strategies for neighborhood identity It was integrated into the idea of being a national that emanated from the state, during the years 1943 and 1944. The state claim represented and involved a conflict with local identity / identities. In a context where the Argentine State had broadly assumed the idea of a moderately homogenous Argentine nation by the middle of the last century, after almost fifty years of policies aimed at integrating the migrant population into a political and economic project, the the discourse and practices of these communities are going to put in between said solidity intended from state agencies at various levels. Their speech is studied from a micro-local publication, as was the newspaper, first fortnightly and then quarterly, Horizons, exclusive organ of these neighborhoods. In the work a critical reading of the newspaper of the Villas is carried out and some conflicts developed around problems such as Hygiene, neighborhood and urban development, the moral characteristics of the population, several complaints to the Municipality of Junin, etc.