Reforming Chile: Cultural Politics, Nationalism, and the Rise of the Middle Class

The rise of cultural nationalism between the 1890s and 1930s brought a genuine transformation of Latin American mentalités. In each nation, the nationalist sea change manifested itself in subtly different ways: José Vasconcelos and Diego Rivera celebrated Mexico’s mestizo fusion; in Uruguay, Rodó denounced crass U.S. materialism; Argentina saw anti-immigrant xenophobia and the cult of the gaucho; Peru gave birth to APRA’s radical Indo-Americanism. Nowhere was this new nationalism stronger than in Chile, but nowhere was the precise content of that nationalism a greater source of contention.Patrick Barr-Melej has therefore provided a great service with this comprehensive and often insightful study of Chilean nationalism in its many incarnations. Barr-Melej’s gaze ranges widely. Chapter 2 offers a good introduction to the thought of pioneering nationalists Francisco Encina, Tancredo Pinochet-Lebrún, Alejandro Venegas, and Nicolás Palacios, the man who popularized the idea of the “chilean race.” In chapters 3 and 4, he takes on literary criollismo, the pastoral ideal, and the evolution of the huaso from rustic bumpkin to symbol of authentic chilenidad. In chapters 5 and 6, Barr-Melej turns his attention to the triumph of secular public instruction and the ever-growing importance of civic education and patriotic rituals. Chapter 7 focuses on the changing content of school textbooks. Each chapter is thoroughly researched and well written, together providing a convincing picture of how far-reaching a mental revolution nationalism signified.Barr-Melej contends that Chile’s emerging middle class provided both the leaders and many of the footsoldiers in this struggle for a nationalist cultural agenda. As members of the middle class rose to prominence in Chile’s literary establishment, its universities and public schools, sectors of the bureaucracy, the Radical Party, and organizations such as the National Educational Association, they incorporated nationalism into a hegemonic project aimed at “undermining the preeminence of the oligarchic establishment,” while at the same time seeking “to suppress working-class radicalism” (p. 7). But this is where this otherwise excellent study runs into some trouble. In determining who actually constituted this middle class, Barr-Melej rightly rejects class definitions tied too simplistically to occupation or income. But deprived of material class markers he must turn to political affiliation (Radical Party) or ideology (antioligarchic sentiment) as proxies, which leads to circular reasoning: his middle class ends up being precisely the people who promote ideas he identifies a priori as “middle-class,” thus tautologically “proving” the class pedigree of the ideas themselves. Barr-Melej may be correct that cultural nationalism formed part of an intrinsically middle-class cultural project, but he cannot entirely prove it. Alternative explanations—that cultural nationalism mirrored European intellectual trends, or that it was a generational response to U.S. imperialism in the 1890s–1900s and/or the collapse of European dreams of progress and civilization on the killing fields of World War I—go unexplored. Similarly unexplored are the legacies of the War of the Pacific and the ongoing Tacna/Arica conflict.To be fair, Barr-Melej provides, in every chapter, a degree of nuance that belies the seeming clumsiness of the middle-class hegemony model. Chapter 4, for example, wonderfully illustrates how both leftist land reformers and the most reactionary of hacendados employed images of the noble huaso to promote their agendas. On close inspection, virtually every chapter is a study in conflict among competing voices, and despite the book’s title, Barr-Melej’s narrative typically shows all sides, not just the middle class, arming themselves with nationalistic discourses and imagery. Perhaps that proves the success of the middle-class hegemonic project, but I wonder.With many academic monographs it is enough to read for the main argument, skipping over details. The opposite holds true for Reforming Chile: readers who take in the details will be rewarded generously, even if they need to approach the overarching thesis with a measure of skepticism.

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