The indigenous comparsas and salteñidad: interpreting local processes

Abstract

This paper aims to understand, through an interpretation of local processes of cultural signification, the ways in which the indigenous´ comparsa –a carnival expressuin– is constructed as a representation of the culture of Salta –a province of the Northwest of Argentina–, entering the imaginary of salteñidad. The main objectives are to demonstrate the constitutive mechanisms and modalizations that operate at the time of their actualization, and to visualize the ideological operations that shape it. In order to achieve that, this research will make use of discursive analysis of some documents produced in the sphere of folklore and tourism, as well as testimonies of some comparsas from the Salta city. The conceptual framework that problematizes the analysis emerges from a sociosemiotic discursive perspective, which understands representation as a social construction of meaning, crucial in the processes of identification and differentiation and in the definition of territoriality.