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RESEARCH PROJECT
The main purpose of the project "Archaeology and History at the Spanish colony of Floridablanca" is to study the diverse trajectories that the conformation of modern society from one particular context, placed far from political and economic power centers in the end of the 18th century. Globalizing discourses propose that the European expansion and the consolidation of the global capitalist system was a single process which took place along the entire geographical and cultural space. However, our perspective seeks to generate alternative explanations: we argue that studying the particularities of this process is an interesting way to understand the meaning of the diversity of the modern world and at the same time, it is a way to question it.
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The colony of Floridablanca was the scene for a novel model of society. It was inspired by the enlighten
discourses that claimed "Equality" for all men, idealized the peasant community and defined the modern concept of family as a pillar for the social order. The colonization plan of the Patagonian coast founded Floridablanca between 1780 and 1784; its material remains are located near Puerto San Julián, Santa Cruz province, Argentina.
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Our research aims to understand the creation, reproduction and transformation of the social order experimented in Floridablanca. We study the relationship between the underlying discourses of the settlement plan and the social practices of the individuals that lived at the colony in its written, as well as in its material dimension. This point of view necessarily implies an interdisciplinary perspective in which we articulate the analysis of documents located in historical archives, the archaeological research and the geophysical studies carried on at the site of Floridablanca.
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Archaeological research has generated information about the material organization of the colony and multiple aspects of every day life of the inhabitants. We question the idea of social change, power relationships and interaction with the tehuelches, foodways, time and agricultural production, negotiation of social and individual identities in consumption, dress and personal ornamentation, the social differentiation axis in the definition of life spaces, sickness, weddings, births and deaths. We wonder about the meanings of the "told" and "untold" histories, the "failure", the "ruins" and the "rediscovery" of Floridablanca from its scenario and protagonists.
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RESEARCH PROJECT
THESES IN ELABORATION
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