Van los linyeras... Construction and circulation of a positive view of romantic individualism in early twentieth century Argentina

Abstract

The article explains how a positive view of romantic individualism embodied in the hobos circulated and established in the first half of 20th century Argentina. Tenant farmers in the Pampas, cultured travelers of early 20th century, anarchist culture -powerful in the 1910s and 1920s- and some expressions of the cultural industry of the first Peronism will be analyzed. This ideal globe trotter will be constructed with empirical reference to the concrete social experience of migrants who, travelling on cargo trains, roamed as day laborers throughout the harvest zones of the Pampas from late 19th century to the 1940s. They were called ";linyeras"; at first and ";crotos"; later.