Between the “desert” and “ignorance”: school expansion in the Puna of Jujuy, Argentina (1880-1905)

The article analyzes the early years of expansion of the national educational system in the Puna of Jujuy (1880-1905). First, we situate the historiographical background on public education in Argentina. Then, we briefly describe the origins of the educational system in Jujuy and analyze a report on...

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Autor principal: Espósito, Guillermina
Formato: Artículo revista
Lenguaje:Español
Publicado: Sección Etnohistoria, Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas. FFyL, UBA 2025
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Acceso en línea:https://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/MA/article/view/17043
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Sumario:The article analyzes the early years of expansion of the national educational system in the Puna of Jujuy (1880-1905). First, we situate the historiographical background on public education in Argentina. Then, we briefly describe the origins of the educational system in Jujuy and analyze a report on the province, written in 1881 by Domingo F. Sarmiento, whose diagnosis and assumptions regarding the notions of desert and ignorance influenced the establishment of schools in the high Andean territory. Finally, we address the complex beginnings of school expansion in the Puna within the broader process of incorporating the territory and its population into the Nation. We argue that the educational system, as a form of the State, reached the region as a fragmented assemblage of norms, agents, and materialities configured through local interactions, mediated by power relations and material conditions, thus revealing a situated and negotiated statehood rather than a fully imposed one.