Trajectory of the ideology of mestizaje in 20th century Peru

Abstract

The relationship between historiography and “miscegenation ideology” has been little explored or insufficiently explained. The ideology of miscegenation became the basis of the discourse of the Peruvian nation between the 19th and 20th centuries. Creole intellectuals sought to homogenize the population, to make the indigenous/Afro-descendant population invisible, or to whitewash the nation. The objective of this article is to approach this phenomenon from the analysis of the work of four influential intellectuals and historians (Víctor Andrés Belaúnde, José de la Riva Agüero, Raúl Porras Barrenechea and José Antonio del Busto), who formed generations of historians and scholars of the country in the twentieth century. These authors will assume conservative Hispanic discourses, which they will seek to present as a “Peruvianist ideology”. Finally, these discourses are contrasted with the vision of miscegenation in authors such as José María Arguedas, who proposes miscegenation without acculturation.