Some notes on political identification and populist discourse. An analysis of letters to Perón from South-East Córdoba

Abstract

This article aims to investigate on how different senders of letters addressed to Perón from the farming region of the Argentinean province of Córdoba -during a call made by the President to include suggestions in the second “Plan Quinquenal”- gave meaning to their own experience in the territory, their demands to the State, or their relations with other local actors, using the political grammar available in the Peronist discourse. Grounded on a Political Theory of Discourse perspective, this paper looks into a field of possible identity effects that the Peronism implied in particular cases and intervenes in the debates that characterise it as a paradigmatic case of populism. On more specific terms, we will analyse how the farm producers who sent the letters communicated with the national State, interpreting their own position within the rural productive framework and giving meaning to State intervention under Perón’s administration. Drawing on some recently contested notions of populism, we hypothesize that the Peronist populist articulation enabled political identifications in those farmers, that moved from specific demands as parts of the rural productive process, to claims that described them as hardworking workers who deserved the benefits that the Peronist national government assured to labourers.