"Marimba, por tí me muero": Region and Nation in Costa Rica, 1824-1939
If you need an accessible version of this item, please email your request to iusw@iu.edu so that they may create one and provide it to you.
Date
2010-05-24
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
[Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University
Permanent Link
Abstract
Analyzing regional identity construction in the peripheral northwestern Costa Rican province of Guanacaste, and the creation of regionalist discourse and political organization in Costa Rica from the early twentieth century to 1939, this dissertation studies the historical dynamics between region and nation. The concept of region employed here is not focused on an economic, geographical, or historical entity but understood primarily as a space and a community imagined by the promoters of regionalism and by the intellectuals and politicians of the country's administrative center. The primary sources used in the dissertation are mainly government documents and newspapers. The principal vehicle in the creation of the imagined region and regional identity was the regionalist newspaper, which became the organ of the regionalist movement and the political party. The discourse of regionalist publicists emphasized harmony, unity, and class conciliation in the province, a construction that served to mask the conflictive social relations in the region and thus benefited the interests of the regional elites. Political regionalism in the form of a regionalist party that competed in national elections had a brief heyday in the late 1930s, but did not endure, as the Costa Rican political system made the transition from a liberal to a reformist/welfare state model beginning in the 1940s.
Description
Thesis (PhD) - Indiana University, History, 2006
Keywords
Region, Costa Rica, History, Nation, Guanacaste, Regionalism
Citation
DOI
Link(s) to data and video for this item
Relation
Rights
Type
Doctoral Dissertation