Long-Distance Charisma: Peronist Identities in the Argentine Interior after 1955

• In Event: Beyond the Argentine Interior: Space, Place, and National Identities

Abstract

Peronism may be Latin America’s most enduring, perplexing, and frequently studied populist movement, but debates about charisma have focused mostly on Juan and Eva Perón and their followers in greater Buenos Aires. Nonetheless, many interior provinces were Peronist strongholds, and many rural people developed strong, enduring Peronist identities.

Although Eva Perón died in 1952, and Juan Perón was forced into exile in 1955, Peronism endured as both a political identity and a way of doing politics. To understand the movement’s persistence, historians must analyze the charismatic bonds that united Juan Perón and his followers, as well as the practices of local intermediaries. Particular visions of Juan and Eva Perón continued to inspire many rural Argentines, especially women and people of mixed-race ancestry, but the mechanisms of political organizing in the interior drew on local traditions. Local practices, in turn, helped sustain charismatic ties over long distances. Paradoxically, Perón’s absence may have strengthened his appeal; his name became an empty cipher with many possible interpretations, and a range of political movements tried to capitalize on his popularity.

This paper will present preliminary evidence on how Peronists in several understudied provinces spoke about Juan and Eva Perón during the seventeen years of Juan Perón’s exile. It will consider what Sigal and Verón term the “restricted circulation” of messages from Perón, rumors about Perón’s possible return, and the many afterlives of Eva Perón. As they remembered, invoked, and reinvented their absent leaders, local communities gradually redefined what it meant to be Peronist.

Author

• Christine J Mathias, King's College London