Indigenista perspectives in Argentine metal music

Abstract

Indigenismo was a literary trend that originated in 1920s Peru and that further developed in many Andean countries, including Argentina. In Argentina, indigenista literature represented a reaction to the hegemonic ideals of civilizationversus-barbarism, which were deployed to justify the murdering and subjugation of indigenous peoples. Starting in the 1980s, many metal bands in Argentina adopt the same approach. This article will examine the way in which metal music in Argentina uses a twofold logic that simultaneously defends all aboriginal traits while condemning all foreign influences, all of this as bands use rhetorical devices that originate in metal music, devices external to the indigenous world and originating from a context of globalization and capitalism. This meditation is based on a socio-semiotic analysis of the output of a handful of bands.