The “rancheríos”. An approach to the hegemonic discourses on rural housing in Uruguay in the 20th century

Abstract

The objective of the work was to reconstruct, from a series of documentary sources and bibliography, the hegemonic discourses - and their production contexts - about rural housing in Uruguay in the 20th century. Analytically, I divided this time range into two stages: one, from the beginning of the century, in the context of the post-wire fencing of the fields; and the other, from the mid-century, in the context of the post-world war and the universalization - led by the United States - of the development discourse. In this reconstruction of the discourses on rural housing, the presence of at least two structuring arguments throughout the century was observable: a sanitary one - synthesized in the idea of ”‹”‹unhealthiness - and a moral one - synthesized in the idea of ”‹”‹promiscuity-. All this was illuminating plots of interests and less visible meanings that are interwoven under the off-road concepts, such as “progress” or “development”, that structure the discourses on rural housing and, as a consequence, the interventions that these discourses enable. At the same time, it helped to understand the virtually total absence of the voice of rural workers in the dispute over the representation of their own homes.