Remembered borders and senses of national belonging. Museums, monuments and commemorative sites as cultural artifacts and devices of power in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina

Fronteiras lembradas e sentidos de pertencimento nacional. Museus, monumentos e locais comemorativos como artefatos culturais e dispositivos de poder no Brasil, no Paraguai e na Argentina

Abstract

The objective of this article is to trace analytical connections between architectures, the use and enhancement of objects and historical figures that intervene in the political-cultural elaboration of a narrative typical of an identity singularity centered on the remembrance of national borders. These are museums, monuments and commemorative sites, that is, institutional devices that make relevant events and important figures visible, and where shared meanings operate in symbolic and representational terms. Museums, monuments and commemorative sites are artifacts that make up the significant framework of nationalism, which contribute to the daily reproduction of the nation as a community, in time and space, be it Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina or any other.

In this article, these material and symbolic supports are interpreted as instruments that actively participate in the remembrance of a national belonging of the citizens, of those who reside here, while remembering the difference with those other neighboring communities, those called neighboring countries there. These borders include those that arise from the process of mutual formation of neighboring national states (agreed interstate borders), by the advance of colonization on nomadic societies (the historical colonization borders) or by the conquest of extensions after a war (wars of border). To account for this, in methodological terms progress has been made in visits and participant observation, exploratory interviews and review of material and virtual sources in museums, memorial sites, memory sites or iconic places marked by public policy.

Keywords:
Border; Memory; Artifacts and devices; Nation; Imaginary

Resumo

O presente artigo tem como objetivo estabelecer conexões analíticas entre representações arquitetônicas, uso e valorização de objetos e personagens históricos que intervêm na elaboração político-cultural de uma narrativa própria de uma singularidade identitária centrada na rememoração das fronteiras nacionais. Trata-se dos museus, monumentos e locais comemorativos, ou seja, dispositivos institucionais que tornam visíveis eventos relevantes e figuras importantes, nos quais os significados compartilhados operam em termos simbólicos e representacionais. Museus, monumentos e locais comemorativos são artefatos que compõem a estrutura significativa do nacionalismo, contribuindo para a reprodução diária da nação como comunidade, em um tempo e espaço, seja no Brasil, no Paraguai, na Argentina ou qualquer outro lugar.

Neste artigo, esses suportes materiais e simbólicos são interpretados como instrumentos que participam ativamente na rememoração de um pertencimento nacional dos cidadãos que vivem aqui, ao mesmo tempo em que destacam a diferença em relação a outras comunidades vizinhas, ou seja, esses países limítrofes. Essas fronteiras incluem aquelas que surgem do processo de formação mútua de estados nacionais vizinhos (fronteiras interestatais acordadas), da expansão da colonização sobre sociedades nômades (as históricas fronteiras de colonização) ou da conquista de territórios após uma guerra (guerras de fronteira). Para investigar isso metodologicamente, foram realizadas visitas e observação participante, entrevistas exploratórias e revisão de fontes materiais e virtuais em museus, locais de memória ou locais icônicos marcados pela política pública.

Palavras-chave:
Fronteira; Memória; Artefatos e dispositivos; Nação; Imaginário

Resumen

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo trazar conexiones analíticas entre figuraciones arquitectónicas, uso y puesta en valor de objetos y personajes históricos que intervienen en la elaboración político-cultural de una narrativa propia de una singularidad identitaria centrada en la rememoración de las fronteras nacionales. Se trata de museos, monumentos y sitios conmemorativos, vale decir, dispositivos institucionales que visibilizan acontecimientos relevantes y figuras importantes, y donde los sentidos compartidos operan en términos simbólicos y representacionales. Museos, monumentos y sitios conmemorativos son artefactos que componen el entramado significante del nacionalismo, que contribuyen a la reproducción cotidiana de la nación como comunidad, en un tiempo y espacio, sea Brasil, Paraguay, Argentina o cualquier otra.

En este artículo se interpretan estos soportes materiales y simbólicos como instrumentos que participan activamente en la rememoración de una pertenencia nacional de la ciudadanía, de quienes residen acá, a la vez que recuerda la diferencia con esas otras comunidades vecinas, esos allá llamados países limítrofes. Esas fronteras incluyen las que surgen del proceso de mutua formación de estados nacionales vecinos (fronteras interestatales acordadas), por el avance de la colonización sobre sociedades nómadas (las históricas fronteras de colonización) o por la conquista de extensiones luego de una guerra (guerras de frontera). Para dar cuenta de ello, en términos metodológicos se ha avanzado en visitas y observación participante, entrevistas exploratorias y revisión de fuentes materiales y virtuales en museos, emplazamientos memoriales, sitios de memoria o lugares icónicos marcados por la política pública.

Palabras claves:
Frontera; Memoria; Artefactos y dispositivos; Nación; Imaginario

Introduction

Remarkable buildings, heroes of independence, national anthems and songs, literary and pictorial works are some of the material and symbolic elements that make up the significant framework of nationalism. They contribute to the daily reproduction of the nation as a spatially and culturally delimited community, such as Brazil, Paraguay, or Argentina.

From the state, as the main institutional and discursive architecture of the nation, through multiple agencies managing public affairs, actions oriented towards the creation of museums, monuments, and commemorative sites have been implemented, intertwining ideas and meanings about the nation's borders and, thereby, about the nation itself. These constitute spatial forms used for the production of official geographical, historical, and anthropological narratives about an idea of the nation as a totality (Nagy, 2013), but also about some of its territorial components, whether the current or past capital city, its territorial divisions (previous and/or present, including a larger extension than the country currently has in the case of references to empires of other times or myths about lost extensions), or its borders.

Thus, museums, monuments, and commemorative sites can be considered as political-cultural artifacts that participate in power devices used to articulate imaginary frameworks about the nation, in the daily production of a certain sameness (Who were we?; Who are we?; or Who do we want to be?), and, at the same time, by action or omission, of otherness (Who are we not? Who are we no longer? Who is left out of this time and space?), at a certain time (Since when are we? Is there a possibility that we stop being or being there?) and space (From where to where are we?, From where are we no longer ourselves but others?).

To address this issue, we identified three relevant case studies through which geography, history, and national memory can be related in situ. This allows us to establish links between commemoration, the construction of collective narratives, and discursively weigh local memories in relation to borders that have been important in shaping Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina as modern nation-states. These are the Marco das Três Fronteiras (Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil), the Panteón Nacional de los Héroes (Asunción, Paraguay), and the Museo del Fin del Mundo (Ushuaia, Argentina).

These three sites, diverse from each other, pose as their central core the use of a material support turned into a cultural artifact that, in multiple ways, connects with political-cultural devices seeking the imaginary production of borders over time. They are materialities that articulate devices and, depending on the case, encompass other constructions, commemorative dates, urban plans, slogans, reminiscences of subjects or objects, and tourist marketing. This general situation panorama leads to considering that official geographical, historical, and anthropological narratives about borders are inscribed in strategies that go beyond the mere act of fixing the limit: it is a process that is constantly updated in institutional terms.

In relation to the above, it is possible to recover the notion of imagined community (Anderson, 1991) as a mode of perception and collective sense, a common heritage about a constantly redefining totality, with inclusions and exclusions, intertwined with different forms of transmission of a collective memory. The key lies in reviewing the ways in which dissimilar but joint spheres of social life, collective practices, and institutional political scaffolding are articulated, where the public, the private, and the intimate are complexified and reconstituted according to the objectives of the context under discussion (Rabotnikof, 2005).

To describe and analyze the three cases, we defined the following questions: What characteristics do they have as commemorative artifacts and how do they fit into their respective spatial environments? With which borders can they be linked in their vocation for narrative and symbolic construction? What memories do they preserve and which ones do they forget? Who promoted it in the past and who does it in the present? What imaginaries and traditions do they seek to forge? What are the power strategies and senses of national belonging they promote? Based on these questions, the objective of this article is to describe and analyze three cultural artifacts (landmark, pantheon, and museum) in their architectural, urbanistic, and museographic aspects, their functions, and the subjects that participated in their emergence, as part of the imaginary construction of fundamental borders in the construction of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina as nation-states.

The analysis of the power devices articulated around them and the senses of the nation pose a mode of national imagination and identity construction, of belonging and symbolic elaboration about the historical narrative that is a constitutive part of the journey through each site. The descriptive work is based on observations made in visits to the three places, at different times and with different purposes. The analysis is complemented by the review of various documentary and bibliographic sources to date the issues mentioned in each of the cases.

Artifacts and Memorial Devices in Material and Symbolic Space

Memorial processes are constituted by the strategies that social subjects, individually or collectively, construct to make sense of the past (recent or distant), from the present and in their connection with the future (Perrière, 2021). These processes are often materialized through different artifacts, which sometimes already existed for other purposes and are re-signified, such as palaces converted into museums. Other times they are expressly located, such as cenotaphs to remember fallen soldiers. These artifacts, at the same time, are considered heritage sites as they have been invested with that label through some regulation or legal naming, positioning and dimensioning them in those terms. Depending on the institution that declared them with such a category, they can be communal, municipal, provincial, national, or belonging to mankind.

Museums, monuments, and commemorative sites function as memorial reference locations that translate power relations about what or who to remember, and at the same time forget, where to place and at what moment of the calendar to locate their celebration. They can be considered artifacts in the sense of produced objects: they are a combination of art, human creativity -including aesthetic and even playful sense- and manufactured, individually or in series, so technique and knowledge intervene. Artifacts are materialities that externalize social actions and express complex and changing relationships between their constituent elements, as well as with other artifacts (Porcaro, 2023). Memory policies activate the recognition of the cultural value of various sites, promote strategies for the preservation of certain environments, and encourage the conservation of areas of collective interest that can subsequently be heritage-listed (Fabri, 2020).

Ultimately, they are devices that make the juxtapositions of meanings and representations visible. Their materialization responds to economic, political, and cultural projects, and they are traversed by conflicts among the social subjects involved. According to Santos (1985), they are spatial forms, which evidence techniques, designs, and aesthetics; they are objects that can be appropriated or exchanged, used and adapted to changing functions. In artifacts there is science and art, architecture and narrative, politics and culture. They are material constructs, which are understood in terms of the practices that sustain them, and symbolic, as they constitute representations and ways of knowing (Haesbaert, 2019). Representations of episodes (wars, disasters, etc.), subjects (heroes, leaders, etc.), landscapes (emblematic, exoticized, etc.), and technical or scientific issues (mining, industry, etc.) materialize in architectural and urban forms, become iconic buildings, promote hegemonic meanings about the past, and prioritize sites for their high value to collective memory, which certain segments of society often manage to impose .

This article wishes to consider museums, monuments, and commemorative sites as artifacts that have a certain structure, texture, and mode of implantation, where imaginaries about borders are put into operation. Moreover, as will be analyzed, they constitute memorial places that fulfill different functions, both for the city in which they are located (which may be responsible for their maintenance or use as a tourist resource), for the country that originated them (perhaps as part of a process of colonization of the past, which is currently used in nationalist narratives) or for regions that consider it a node of extraterritorial reference (a boundary for an entire continent).

Museums, Monuments, and Sites

Political-cultural artifacts such as those mentioned can be considered in isolation, in their idiosyncrasy, describing their appearances, the circumstances explaining their emergence and permanence. They can also be treated within a certain artifact environment (Montani, 2016), where each one can be recognized as a piece of a puzzle that helps to better understand the complexity of processes, systemic relationships, hierarchies, and levels of centralization. In other terms, they are devices, that is, sets of articulated objects and signals, arranged in a specific space and time. Their location is not random. On the contrary, they respond to long-term projects, such as the formation of nation-states, where institutional memory and heritage policies always intervene. When considering museums, it is interesting to focus on three central aspects: the museum itself (the institution), curation (how the narrative is constructed), and narrative (the content of that narrative and its objectives).

Natural, national, regional, historical, and anthropological museums are privileged artifacts for the exercise of memory about episodes of a recent past or atavistic times. They can be considered as such institutions that gather in a building a repertoire of materials that recreate meanings about the past (which project onto the present and the future) and the here and now (the scope intended to delimit and describe in order to spatially and culturally contain that temporality). There, science and literature, politics and culture, colonization and decolonization, art, and architecture intersect in ways that are difficult to unravel (Bustamante, 2012). It could be said that the practice of museumization consists of organizing and premeditating a certain argument through objects and verbalizations (Casamor, 2010). It is an analytical cut that selects aspects to be shown and others to be hidden, responding to a singular positioning to make certain objects, facts, or personalities visible. Many of these museums often include sections that help interpret, tacitly or explicitly, the current borders of the nation, driven by war or diplomacy, or the past, in the case of repositories referring to extinct empires (such as the Incas) or to the contact, encounter, and conflict between Hispanic colonial societies and native societies.

The museum as a political-cultural artifact and device driven by the state emerged between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The French Revolution transformed the public museum into a space to archive the religious, monarchical, and feudal past, declaring royal collections as national assets (Núñez, 2007). Progressively, they served to showcase, with a colonialist spirit, the wealth and opulence of the metropolis through treasures brought from overseas territories, as well as to produce narratives about evolution and progress, also feeding the Eurocentric imaginary as the epitome of civilization. The collection of objects gathered in a museum produces a particular historical, geographical, and cultural narrative (Fabri, 2020). For example, the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York narrate the wealth, global reach, and dominative capacity of their imperial nations.

On the other hand, the museum is an artifact with complex connections to the outside world, which gives it cultural significance, acknowledges the political-institutional convenience of financial solvency, and uses it to mediate in different power struggles. This environment is the national, provincial, or municipal territory, which is neither homogeneous nor harmonious; it is conflictive and segmented by interests that enter museums. Frequently, the museum narrates the social ascent of certain sectors that have become hegemonic and, in parallel, activates forgetfulness of subalternized sectors, which become inseparable from collective identity (Quijada, 2012). It also collaborates in the production of centralities, for example, by reinforcing the capital character of certain urban areas. Additionally, there is an interior within the museum, a territoriality, where the daily life of the personnel involved in curatorial tasks unfolds. They are the ones who produce the museological scripts, manage the institution, or take care of its safety. Finally, there are those who visit the sites. The museological script also fosters a space-time itinerary to be traveled: an entry point, an exit point, and an in-between. This sequence considers a certain chronology, thematic thread, or spatial distribution that the visitor either respects or transgresses (Hite, 2013).

Recent processes of globalization, decolonization, and multiculturalism have activated criticism of the nation's unifying narratives, leading to deep revisions of the aggregating discourses and the museums that symbolize them. There has also been a questioning of their capacity to contribute to the construction of the reality they describe. The museum as an institution and the collecting of objects belonging to exoticized cultures began to be perceived as expressions of appropriation and dispossession of different colonized peoples. In response, progressively, the boundaries of what is museum-worthy became less exclusive compared to canonical definitions, supported by modern and metropolitan ideals (Pinochet Cobos, 2016).

Monoliths, cenotaphs, statues, temples, and museums can be categorized as monuments. They are architectural artifacts that express a will to give material visibility to people, events, ideas, or geographic objects, beyond the moment they were conceived and built. Therefore, their installation constitutes an aspiration for dialogue towards the future, although in each social context, their memorial function and associated historical narrative are ultimately updated. In fact, the etymology of the word refers to memory: in Roman times, the monumentum was a commemorative architectural work (Kaulicke, 2003). Monuments are often associated with human constructions, but there has also been a tendency to recognize as such different geophysical forms, such as rivers and mountains, which are invested with exceptional significance by giving them a name and transforming them into objects/subjects in different narratives. Thus, monumentalization is a way in which the community-nation revises and represents nature or cultural events.

Long-term, monuments (including museums) constitute a repository of techniques, aesthetics, and knowledge from other times, which question and stress the subjects who currently strive to assign them certain meanings and social functions. Their intention is often to generate a historical continuum, a time of our own, between the represented subject or event, which is constantly updated with each act of commemoration, recreation of national historical, geographical, and anthropological narratives, with each interpretation and reinterpretation according to the needs of each moment (García Álvarez, 2009). This is what happens with statues erected to highlight the figure of those who led an era, which, after their fall, were torn down or relocated (Criado Boado, 2001). On the other hand, monuments have a pedagogical function, as is often the case with those dedicated to certain social subjects (the mother, the prophet, etc.), which have been placed in nodal public places since ancient times. With this, the dominant power seeks to glorify these subjects, give them visibility, and, at the same time, convey a message about their exemplary character (Massa, 1998).

The category of site is more flexible and also includes monuments and museums. It belongs to the vocabulary of classical human geography, but its use has become widespread in cultural, memorial, and heritage studies. Often, its definition is not explicitly stated. It is generally contextual and tends to be carried out through enumerations or exemplifications.

In the first instance, a site is a point on the Earth's surface: a corner, a cave, a building, a coast, and so forth. It has material existence and a position, which is determined by some reference system, such as coordinates (parallels and meridians, southern/northern), regional identification (within a country, province, or municipality), or relative (nearby, far from, in the center). It is a delimited terrain, whose definition is based on some classification or taxonomy, which may consider locational, functional, or systemic aspects. It is often crystallized by normative action.

A portion of a river becomes a site to the extent that a prototypical architecture is concentrated there. That same portion can be defined using a functional criterion, to the extent that it was exploited for some human activity in the past, such as defense against attacks. It is also a site if the systemic relationship between plants and animals is highlighted, that is, an ecosystem and its biodiversity that need protection. Therefore, the character of a site is not intrinsic but relative and procedural, based on the classificatory system implemented by someone at some point to define it as such. It is worth saying that it is not universal or permanent: what some societies catalog as a site, others may consider that it is not. Certain knowledge and the exercise of power are ultimately what turn a point on the Earth's surface into a site and determine what treatment it should receive.

Likewise, the identification of a site involves a scalar determination. In heritage policies, circuits of hundreds of kilometers can be declared a site, as can small constructions or sets: the Inca Trail, the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, or gardens surrounding medieval palaces are cataloged as sites eligible to enter memorial and heritage policies. Then comes the adjectivation (natural, religious, archaeological, rock art, mortuary, of humanity, and so on) and the value it acquires, which make it preservable or not, transformable or not, privatizable or not. When sites are appropriated and valued, subjectivized and weighted, they become places. In short, the site is a spatial form with material existence, located on the Earth's surface, referenced in some way, recognized within some classificatory system based on the intervention of fields of knowledge, and laden with cultural meanings. Stating that a site is historical is imprecise, as space is inseparable from time; space can be understood as an accumulation of temporalities (Santos, 1996). In any case, it is a site socially endowed with value to narrate a certain historicity.

In summary, museums, monuments, and sites constitute artifacts that express the will and knowledge of certain subjects to shape a heritage for the community they are part of and as a way to address future generations. They are memorials to the extent that they instrumentalize actions from the present to make people think about that past in the future. The sustainability of the memorial character of these places is possible through memory policies, generally driven by elites, who implement historical, geographical, and anthropological discourses through various public actions, such as maintaining places and updating various public performances, such as commemorations (García Álvarez, 2009).

Remembered Borders

The processes of colonization, land conquest, the establishment of defenses, or the definition of dividing lines, ultimately, the production of borders, are preceded, accompanied, and succeeded by the location of material and symbolic spatial forms. In the end, they often become heritage objects and constitute places of memory as part of political-cultural strategies. In this sense, walls and ramparts are among the artifacts associated with borders of different natures and moments of the past more widely preserved as memorial places. The Great Wall, which ancient China used to confront the nomadic peoples of Mongolia and Manchuria, the walls built to defend the boundaries of the Roman Empire, and the defensive walls against pirate attacks constructed in Hispano-American colonial cities, such as Cartagena de Indias, stand out (Tamagnini, 2020).

Throughout history, borders emerged in processes of conquest, population displacement, and defense of resources against the invasion of other human groups, but in the present, they acquire new functions as memorial places. Generally, they are collective heritage exploited in touristification processes that involve multiple sites, either to enhance the technological and aesthetic value of these materials or to underline the hegemonic nature of ancient empires and force a line of continuity and invent a tradition. They can also be read as memories of death (Caraballo Perichi, 2008), as they evidence the violent relations between those who remained inside and those who could not enter. Walls, castles, bastions, forts, strongholds, moats, and trenches constitute a variety of defensive works that were true devices for war and territorial conquest. Walls continue to be erected in modern times, for actively belligerent or security purposes, while also acquiring a heritage function.

Many countries have transformed heritage memorial sites into cultural landmarks, but also economic ones, by making the visit to these sites a tourist practice promoted by different levels of government. An exemplary case is France, a country that has efficiently developed memory tourism associated with an extensive network of museums and memorial sites, including fortifications from the 16tbh to the 19th centuries, the Franco-Prussian War, both World Wars, and sites commemorating the Holocaust (González; Font, 2016).

In the case of the border between Portugal and Spain, the practice of smuggling was key to the economic development of many of its inhabitants, so it became a central component of border culture. With both countries joining the European Economic Community and the consequent liberalization of the circulation of goods and people, this practice became obsolete and tended to disappear. Over time, it was turned into heritage and tourism (Silva, 2009): the Espaço Memória e Fronteira in Melgaço (Viana do Castelo), in northern Portugal, bordering Spain, also known as the museum of smuggling and emigration, emerged.

Memorials on South American Borders

This article will focus on three emblematic cases of memorial artifacts on the borders: the monument and site "Marco das Três Fronteiras" in Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil), the National Pantheon of Heroes and Oratory to the Virgin Mary Our Lady of the Assumption in Asunción (Paraguay), and the two heritage buildings of the Museo del Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia (Argentina). Their selection responds to the possibility we had to access the field in all three cases, based on trips taken by the author of this article, at different times and contexts. Each visit to these three sites proved to be suggestive for carrying out the descriptions and analyses found in the following sections. To analyze these three cases, three axes will be considered: (1) artifacts, with references to their origin, functions, and current heritage status; (2) memorial devices in which they are inserted, whether cultural, touristic, or of another kind; (3) ways in which borders are present and narrated, and their national ascription.

Marco das Três Fronteiras, Brazil

For the demarcation between Argentina and Brazil, a line of about 1,200 km was established, crossing the Uruguay (for the most part), Pepirí Guazú, San Antonio, and Iguazú rivers, as well as about 25 km of land, a segment often referred to as the dry border. Along this stretch, over 300 stone obelisks were erected as a way to mark the boundary. Additionally, at the confluence of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers, visible from each other, two identical obelisks were erected, one on the Brazilian side and the other on the Argentine side. The monument located on the Brazilian side is known as Marco das Três Fronteiras and is located in the municipality of Foz do Iguaçu. On the Argentine side, it is called Hito Tres Fronteras and is situated in the municipality of Puerto Iguazú. These monuments were installed there to celebrate the peaceful resolution of the Brazilian-Argentine border conflict and were inaugurated simultaneously on June 20, 1903 (Louvain, 2018). Later on, Paraguay did the same, in 1961, by building the Hito Tres Fronteras in the town of Presidente Franco, south of the conurbation of Ciudad del Este, with a different architectural design from the other two.

Until the 2010s, the site where the obelisk of Foz do Iguaçu is located had no major infrastructure. There was an access road in regular maintenance conditions, poorly signposted; the terrain was barely furnished, and the jungle vegetation typical of the area predominated. It was an unremarkable place, unlike what happened in Puerto Iguazú, where the obelisk was located in an accessible area, well-lit, with urban furniture (benches, viewpoints, etc.), and visited by tourists and the local population as a recreational area.

This changed around 2015. That year, the municipality of Foz do Iguaçu granted the concession of use of the site to the consortium Cataratas S.A., which would be responsible for its operation, administration, maintenance, conservation, surveillance, modernization, and tourist development (Public Tender Notice No. 004/2015). The site was finally inaugurated in 2016 and bears the same name as the monument (Louvain; García, 2016; Louvain, 2018).

Figure 1.
Marco das Três Fronteiras. a) Year 2013. b) Year 2022. c) Year 2018. d) year 2018. Source: Alejandro Benedetti.

The Marco das Três Fronteiras site (Figure 1) covers an area of about 2 hectares. The premises were privatized and enclosed with walls that prevent free access and viewing of its interior. In addition, much of its natural vegetation was removed (Figure 1b).

The main building of this site recreates Jesuit architecture (Figure 1d) and includes booths for ticket sales, a souvenir shop, restrooms, and a small museum of Guarani culture. At the entrance, there is a screen displaying the movie "The Mission" (1996, directed by Roland Joffé), which recreates the moment of contact between Jesuits and the Guarani community, and their subsequent evangelization (Frete, 2017). The interior of this building features a contemporary design and aesthetic, without construction details that recall anything in particular. The facade, on the other hand, replicates the techniques and aesthetics of temples built by the Jesuits during colonial times, similar to what can be seen in nearby ruins. An annex to this massive building is dedicated to the memorial of Cabeza de Vaca, the Iberian colonizer who arrived in the region in 1542 and sighted the confluence of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers and the Iguazú Falls, initially baptized as Saltos de Santa Maria (Benetti, 2010).

After passing through the main building, you will find the obelisk, to which a fountain has been annexed (Figure 1a; Figure 1b). This area is used daily as a stage for a folkloric and commemorative show, representing the three countries and Guarani culture. Around the obelisk-fountain, a recreational patio was set up, with seats and tables for diners, trees, and flower beds with vegetation. On one side, there is a building with an eclectic aesthetic, different from that of the main building. There, gastronomic establishments operate.

Further on, there is an esplanade that leads to a railing, serving as a perimeter fence and protection for the premises. From this esplanade, there is a perspective of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers and the Argentine and Paraguayan shores of this tripartite area. On one side, a sign indicating the orientation of the three countries, Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, was installed. More than the obelisk, this sign became the preferred spot for tourist photos (Figure 1c).

In addition to being a commemorative site that participates in the activation of narratives about the conquest by the Iberian empires and the modern territorial demarcation process between Brazil and Argentina, Marco das Três Fronteiras serves two other functions: urbanistic and touristic. Through a recreation of colonial architectures, the advancement of colonial borders over the Iguazú region is remembered. The facade of the main building, its annex, and the small museum form a device for memorializing the Iberian conquest and the subsequent evangelization process by the Jesuits of the Iguazú region, through a building recreation that aims for authenticity. This is reinforced by the screening of the movie "The Mission" and the daily evening dance and theatrical show, with lighting effects and movement of the fountain waters, presented as part of myths and legends. Thus, both the memory of the religious experience in the place and the past of colonial subjugation are activated in a romanticized manner. Additionally, since the mid-20th century, the obelisk has functioned as part of a Paranaense state affirmation device on the Brazilian side of the river and the Iguazú Falls, through various documentaries and narratives (Benetti, 2010).

The obelisk, which was restored and inserted into an urban project in 2016, was built in 1903 so that future generations would remember the peaceful resolution of the dispute with Argentina, a function it still fulfills. However, at the same time, it overlooks the bellicose resolution that both countries maintained with Paraguay in the construction of that border, a country that only in 1961 placed its border monument in Puerto Falcón, as nothing recalls that episode. But, furthermore, it is part of a much broader spatial and temporal educational and memorial device: the daily imaginary construction of the border that the Brazilian state has maintained since the late 19th century with 10 South American countries, and with Argentina and Paraguay in particular in this tripartite location. Along the over 9,000 km of borders, the Brazilian national state has materialized the principle of territorial sovereignty, marked the reach of its legal system, and built the demographic sameness called the Brazilian population through markers, bridges painted with green and yellow colors on one side, flags waving on the buildings of control agencies, and welcome signs to the country. This is the semiotic dimension of state territorialization, which seeks to constantly update the memory of the geographical extent of the Brazilian national state. Likewise, the visible Argentine and Paraguayan landmarks on the opposite banks of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers, respectively, teach about the presence of those geographical otherness, those "there" different from this "here".

This site is integrated into another device, in this case of urbanization, driven by the municipality of Foz do Iguaçu, on the banks of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers. These interventions are also in line with the Strategic Borders Plan initiated by Federal Decree 7,496 of 2011. Essentially, it participates in the attempt to securitize the area labeled as the "Triple Frontier," where the Brazilian and Argentine states have been installing biopolitical control equipment. Other interventions include the installation of a "Round the World '' ferris wheel in the vicinity, as well as the construction of the third road bridge of the Triple Frontier between Foz and Puerto Falcón. All these interventions only serve to urbanize this space, eliminating the remnants of the Atlantic forest. There is a private appropriation of the site, with selective entry through payment of an admission fee: an internal border to access the spectacle offered by this border (external), memory, and recreation.

Finally, and no less important, the site was redesigned in the context of the consolidation of Foz do Iguaçu as an international tourist destination, linked to the waterfalls. The management of access to the waterfalls was also privatized. Tourist agencies offer a package that usually includes the Falls, Safari, a visit to a steakhouse, and the Marco das Três Fronteiras. Thus, in the context of new global forms of capital accumulation aimed at enhancing different tourist sites as a source of resources, this commemorative site becomes an attractive product. It is the spectacle at the border (because the commemorative site is located there), but also the border is the spectacle (Barros; Catsossa, 2021).

Panteón Nacional de los Héroes, Paraguay

Paraguayan history records two wars. Between 1865-1870, the country faced the allied forces of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay in what is known as the War of/against the Triple Alliance, Great War, Guasú or Paraguay War, or Great War. In the 20th century, Paraguay faced Bolivia in the Chaco War (1932-1935). The main drivers of these conflicts were strategic, linked to river navigability or control of natural resources. At the same time, they operated in different ways as accelerators of the formation and consolidation of neighboring and conflicting national communities (Brezzo, 2004). The most important geopolitical implications were the definition of sovereignty over extensive sectors of the Chaco, the territorial differentiation of Paraguay with its three neighboring countries, and the acceleration of the different processes of delimitation and demarcation that followed. For this reason, both can be classified as border wars, that is, wars where the motivations and their consequences refer to the borders.

Both wars were extensive and particularly traumatic for Paraguay, which suffered significant material and human losses. The Great War opened a new era for the country, given the profound and negative transformation it generated, as it completely affected its social fabric, and a growing dependence on the victorious countries was generated. The war with Bolivia also caused enormous material and human losses. The Patrón de los Héroes Nacionales Monument (Figure 2) is a materialization of the memory constructed, to a large extent, around these two border wars.

On October 13, 1863, the president of Paraguay, Carlos Antonio López, had begun the construction of an oratory dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption, patroness of the city of the same name. It was part of an urban planning device at the time, aimed at turning Asunción into a modern city, equipped with palaces like those in European cities. The president hired the Italian architect Alejandro Ravizza, who since 1855 had continued or started the construction of several buildings, including the oratory. Ravizza used the architectural aesthetics of Italian Catholic temples, in López 's attempt to turn Asunción into a European capital. After his death, he was succeeded by his son, Francisco Solano López, who soon declared war on Argentina and, with it, on the so-called Triple Alliance, which interrupted the construction of the oratory (Brezzo, 2016). After this conflagration, the post-war governments declared Solano López a "murderer," and his memory was inhibited from being exhibited in public space; at that time, no commemorative monument was erected. However, in the early decades of the 20th century, an operation began that sought the rehabilitation of Solano López by a sector of the Paraguayan intelligentsia.

Figure 2.
National Pantheon of Heroes. Source: Alejandro Benedetti.

In 1936, it was established that the Oratory would be renamed the Patrón de los Héroes Nacionales. The building would be intended to preserve the remains of those considered heroes. The land where the building is located was expropriated and later converted into the Plaza de los Héroes. After its opening, the remains of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (declared a hero of independence), Marshal Francisco Solano López (declared a national hero), and Carlos Antonio López (the first constitutional president of Paraguay) were brought there. The remains of Marshal José Félix Estigarribia, considered a hero and victor in the recently concluded Chaco War, were also placed there (Caballero Cáceres, 2015).

Thus, figures previously questioned such as Francia or Solano López, through this course of action, were elevated to the status of national heroes. This resulted in a change in the way subjects who played a leading role in the border wars were commemorated, in a central site in the Paraguayan capital. Until 2011, the monument was exclusively reserved for the exaltation of protagonists of the nineteenth century and the two border wars. That year, when Paraguay's bicentennial of independence was commemorated, restoration work began. On that occasion, the monument was declared a national cultural heritage by the National Secretariat of Culture (SNC). Likewise, a debate began about who should be extended the possibility of being granted a space there, including people whose merits were not necessarily based on military feats or the defense of national sovereignty (Brezzo, 2016). This is a journey marked by a sort of necropolitics, to determine which mortal remains are deserving of this enclosure.

The Patrón de los Héroes is an artifact whose function is not, in principle, to explicitly remember or educate about borders. As such, it constitutes a site used to commemorate those who are considered, as its name indicates, heroes of the nation. But among them are those who drove the two great border wars, key to the territorial configuration and the current national identity of Paraguay. Therefore, it could hardly be understood in isolation. On the contrary, it can be considered as a piece, perhaps the most important one, of a complex memorial and imaginary device that was built around the representation of Paraguay as a nation of heroes who consented to the ultimate sacrifice to preserve their territorial integrity and national identity through the defense of their borders (Capdevilla, 2012).

Following the conclusion of the first border war, through the decree of August 17th, 1869, the provisional government stripped Francisco Solano López of Paraguayan nationality and declared him a "murderer of his country and an enemy of humanity," as interpreted by the victors. Gradually, towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the elites began to shape a collective memory that presented Paraguay as a glorious nation: the War of the Triple Alliance ceased to be seen as a failure and became a central event in national history. With this, the figure of Solano López was revalued, and a new discourse about the war emerged, materialized in monuments, and disseminated through the educational system (Alegre Benítez, 2020), among other means. Street names, commemorative dates, and the publication of books containing accounts of war veterans also participated in this memorial construction.

This nationalist trend soon merged with a discourse against Bolivia, intertwining memories of the sacrifices of the victims of the first war with the need to defend the Chaco, thus paving the way for the second war. Thus, the war against Bolivia emerged as a new event that showcased the heroic and sacrificial character of the Paraguayan people (Capdevilla, 2012). This perception of the war was reinforced in the aftermath of the Chaco War when the pantheon was inaugurated as the main site of the memorial device regarding the nation's past and the role that border wars were deemed to play in the territorial consciousness of Paraguay's imagined community. This symbolic fabric, which redefines the meaning of border wars in the memories of national history, was woven by military dictatorships, especially that of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989), which, from an authoritarian perspective, shaped the features of Paraguayan nationalism in the 20th century (Alegre Benítez, 2020).

For Paraguay, both wars maintain a significant centrality in active memory and form the pivot of a memorial system that has come to occupy public space and various spheres of society (Capdevilla, 2010, 2012; Maas, 2016). There are streets, monuments, traces, and places throughout the country that commemorate these episodes. Of Paraguay's 11 national holidays, three refer to its two major wars: (1) March 1, Heroes of the Fatherland Day, commemorating the last battle of the War against the Triple Alliance, the Battle of Cerro Corá, where Marshal Francisco Solano López died; (2) June 12, Chaco Peace Day; (3) September 29, Victory of Boquerón: the first battle of the Chaco War, between September 9 and 29, 1932. Additionally, scenes commemorating the war are depicted on coins and banknotes: the Patrón de los Héroes Nacionales is engraved on the 1,000 guaraní coin.

Museo del Fin del Mundo

The Museo del Fin del Mundo (Figure 3) is located in the city of Ushuaia, Argentina. The fundamental theme of the museum script is based on the conquest of the southernmost region and the formation of the National Territory of Tierra del Fuego, an administrative structure that organized the Argentine state in the part of that island it controlled between 1884 and 1991. On October 12, 1884, a Subprefecture was founded, and Ushuaia was declared the capital. In the early 1900s, the Argentine government founded the Ushuaia Penitentiary there with the aim of addressing the country's penitentiary issues and, at the same time, repopulating the region after the extermination of the native inhabitants. The construction was carried out with local materials and the labor of the prisoners. Act No. 14,408 established the provincialization of the national territories in 1955, but it was not until 1991 that this occurred in the case of Tierra del Fuego.

The building that currently houses the Museo del Fin del Mundo served as the Banco Nación from 1915 until 1976. From 1979 to the present day, its mission has been to preserve the historical roots of Tierra del Fuego. According to the guide responsible for the museum tour, there is a relationship with the very purpose of the museum's opening, which was achieved after several attempts by a group of determined residents to rescue the city's past.

The Museo del Fin del Mundo is one of the city's emblematic constructions. It is one of the few buildings made of masonry in the early years of its foundation. The land was acquired from the then-governor Manuel Fernández Valdés in 1911, and it included a house. The idea of creating a museum in Ushuaia dates back to 1906, and its purpose at that time was to promote the region's nascent industry. National authorities denied the request due to a lack of funds. The next attempt was in the early 1960s, led by Governor Ernesto Manuel Campos. The subsequent administration made some progress by allocating a property owned by the governorate to the Museo Regional Fueguino. However, due to the lack of funds required for its adaptation, the project was stalled.

In 1973, an association was founded with the aim of creating an official museum in Ushuaia. Three years later, this group adopted the name H.A.N.I.S., which in the Yámana language means “lenga” (the name of a type of tree in the area): it stands for History, Anthropology, Nature, Island, and South, terms that define the identity of the institution and its objectives. Recognized by the government of Tierra del Fuego, the H.A.N.I.S. group allowed direct participation of the population in the museum, which upon its creation became a social and cultural reference point for the city. For this reason, understanding its heritage means understanding part of the history and present of the area. This building integrates a memorial device that includes the waterfront and other museums such as the Prison Museum, the Maritime Museum, and the Think Malvinas Museum, aimed at historical restitution and the natural value of the city, as well as the remembrance of the war for control of the Malvinas Islands and the South Atlantic between Argentina and the United Kingdom, between April 2nd and June 14th, 1982. Additionally, the museum highlights the way of life on this southern island, emphasizing the climatic rigor, economic activities, the link with the prison, and the inhabitants who arrived as immigrants (considered pioneers in local culture).

The H.A.N.I.S. group was concerned with advancing the development of a legal instrument that contemplated the protection of historical, anthropological, paleontological, and natural heritage, which was finally crystallized in a decree from the governorship. However, it was still necessary to advance in the creation of the museum. This was achieved through a regulation in 1978, following the transfer of the building by the Banco Nación. It was inaugurated as the Territorial Museum on May 18th, 1979. Additionally, there is another building: the Old Government House and Governor's Residence, which is now preserved for its heritage character. Its construction dates back to the last decade of the 19th century and served as the governor's residence. It then became the seat of the Legislative Power of Tierra del Fuego from 1983, during its territorial stage, until 2002, when it became a province. Since 2008, it has been an annex ofThe Museo del Fin del Mundo. The prison, the governor's house, and the Banco Nación headquarters are material expressions of the Argentine state's conquest of the southernmost end of the continent in the process of its territorial consolidation.

The main museum building has two floors, where six exhibition halls, the library, a bookstore, and a post office are located. The ground floor also houses the Historical Archive. Likewise, on the first floor are the photography and audiovisual media laboratories, science labs, and the conservation area. The Old Government House has four rooms for exhibitions and an audiovisual room. The building is also used for temporary exhibitions on various topics. Guided tours of both locations are available.

The museum's name emphasizes a significant presence in the area. Different representation practices positioned Ushuaia as the Argentine city at the southernmost tip, with its counterpart: La Quiaca, at the northern extreme. Over time, it was promoted as the southernmost city in Argentina. At least since the 1960s, these cities acquired this emblematic status through the slogan “From Ushuaia to La Quiaca,” a concept replicated in other neighboring countries, such as “From Oiapoque to Chuí” in Brazil. Such slogans are commonplace and serve to appeal to the geographic sense of the nation as an imagined community. The significance given to these boundaries to denote the extent of the national territory is a relic of classical geopolitical thought: the country is that which extends between the extreme points and installs the idea of the border as an element for the closure of the national territory.

The extreme nature of Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego is also global. The site tended to be thought of as the end of the world. The location and naming of the end of the world depend on the comprehensive apprehension of the image of the planet. Only once the world is revealed as a whole does the identification of the end of the world with Tierra del Fuego make precise sense. Therefore, the invention of the Fuegian end of the world is a late chapter in the broader geographic revelation of the planet (Giucci, 2014). However, further south of that boundary, there is more world: on the opposite shore of the bordering Beagle Channel, in Chilean territory, lies the small hamlet of Puerto Navarino, and even further south is Antarctica.

Figure 3.
Facade of the End of the World Museum. Source: Silvina Fabri, April 1, 2023.

In the museographic script of The Museo del Fin del Mundo, current and ancient cartography are juxtaposed to account for the institutional policy of the Argentine state in terms of settlement strategy, diplomatic strategy, and also geopolitics. One room is dedicated to travelers and explorers of the so-called edge of the world. There, ancient atlases, books, and maps of Tierra del Fuego and the South Atlantic Islands are presented. Also, issues of boundaries (with Chile), national sovereignty, and the 1982 conflict are exposed. The connections between the visit's narrative, together with the objects and photographs that make up the various thematic rooms of the museum, in conjunction with atlases and publications of explorers, invest the materials with a particular aura: exploration, discovery, and the domestication of the nature of this finisterra, along with the human overcoming of the first settlers to cope with the harsh climate and remoteness from terrestrial urban centers. Thus, there is an accumulation of meanings about borders: terrestrial borders with neighboring countries, the never-mentioned border with the United Kingdom (since the official discourse denies the legitimacy of the control exerted by that country over the archipelago, so it does not present that edge as a border), as well as the border as the edge and extreme of the homeland.

Conclusions

Museums, monuments, and sites construct memories and operate within extensive networks of knowledge, power, and subjectivities through the practices deployed by different social subjects. They contain discourses or narratives about individuals, geographies, and histories, about individual or collective practices, about concepts and notions. They select and legitimize identity references, preserve or forget certain memories. They are key pieces in the construction of the nation and nationality, and feelings of belonging or affiliation. Likewise, they participate in updating the sense of loyalty to the nation or subnational entities. As developed in this article, borders have entered museums, monuments, and sites in various and intricate ways. From them, they project towards those who visit these sites, interpellated in the sense of belonging to national sameness and otherness in constant definition.

The three cases analyzed present commonalities and, at the same time, unique elements that pose as a complex framework around the memory and past of borders. In common, one can mention the centrality acquired by architectural artifacts: the frame, the pantheon, and the museum. These monumental materialities are located in heritage sites, which become emblems or icons of the cities where they are located and, in their national projection, are reference sites to imagine the national territory as a whole and the border as one of its fundamental components. Urban planning criteria and tourist strategies end up shaping these commemorative artifacts. They are not isolated artifacts, as they integrate political-cultural devices that construct, sometimes in capillary ways, senses of national affiliation. Likewise, the script built around each of the three sites gives value to its identity narrative about borders.

The main difference refers to the context of emergence, the nature of the referenced border, and the participation of diverse agencies in its emergence: the Guaraní memory and the peaceful demarcation between Brazil and Argentina in the case of the frame, the border wars and their heroes in the case of the pantheon, and the conquest and repopulation of lands in the southern extreme of the continent in the case of the museum. The activation of heritage value is not spontaneous: it is based on regulations, the actions of various agents, and the implementation of cultural public policies, at local, provincial, and national scales. That interplay of scales allows marking the sites strategically, endowing them with an identity and shared sense for the national community to which they belong.

The elements that make up the scripts of each of the tours serve as devices for a narrative, a selection, and political-institutional objectives that intervene in the practices of the visits made by social subjects. Those who visit these sites are largely those who intervene in that constant symbolic reconstruction of memories and imaginaries that are sought to be preserved and transmitted. Those meanings cannot crystallize or remain constant over time but are subject to the emergence of other cultural meanings associated with the use of memorial and commemorative devices and the subjectivities of social practices, political contexts, and institutional objectives.

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Edited by

Article editor:

Adriana Dorfman

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  01 July 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  23 Oct 2023
• Accepted
  07 Feb 2024