UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff PPeennnnssyyllvvaanniiaa SScchhoollaarrllyyCCoommmmoonnss Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2015 FFiigghhttiinngg WWiitthh WWiinnee:: RRuuiinn,, RReessiissttaannccee aanndd RReenneewwaall iinn aa QQoomm CCoommmmuunniittyy ooff NNoorrtthheerrnn AArrggeennttiinnaa Christopher A. Golias University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Indigenous Studies Commons, Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn Golias, Christopher A., "Fighting With Wine: Ruin, Resistance and Renewal in a Qom Community of Northern Argentina" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1741. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1741 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1741 For more information, please contact [email protected]. FFiigghhttiinngg WWiitthh WWiinnee:: RRuuiinn,, RReessiissttaannccee aanndd RReenneewwaall iinn aa QQoomm CCoommmmuunniittyy ooff NNoorrtthheerrnn AArrggeennttiinnaa AAbbssttrraacctt This study examines public binge drinking among the Qom (Toba) ex-foragers of Formosa, northern Argentina. Based upon 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a peri-urban Qom barrio (Lot 84), this analysis relates binge drinking to Qom ethnohistory, community life, and interactions with the Argentine state. The public, performative nature of Qom binge drinking is explored; intoxication is shown to convey in sometimes violent public spectacle the pathos of their socioeconomic marginality, reinforce non- indigenous Argentines’ entrenched perceptions of violent “Indians”, and paradoxically provide the Qom with vehicle for continued colonial resistance. Many Qom view drinking problems as rooted in Lot 84’s close proximity to the city (Formosa) relative to more rural Qom villages. Thus they reference a continuum of health that runs from urban, non-indigenous spaces to the rural bush country where foods—including home-brewed alcohol—are healthful rather than harmful. In kind, the violence and perceived chaos associated with public binge drinking has led to the development of programs intended to stem alcohol use in the community. Locally, counseling efforts are woven in the missions of evangelical churches and the Catholic chapel, while top-down efforts focus upon state-run psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is explored as a paternalistic form of governmental domination and attempted assimilation. Rather than relying upon state-run methods for personal and communal re-integration, many Qom centrally position a period of alcohol use within their personal development narratives, during which alcohol allowed them to find personal responsibility or an improved relationship with God. On a communal level, fighting against public alcohol use among youth has led to increased community solidarity and capacity building through sport, education and indigenous-led program creation. In summary, public binge drinking is manifest in the Qom community not through acculturation or personal pathology, but rather as a multi-valent, ritualesque performance that levies resistance against prevailing social conditions and, despite the profound tax of violence, occasions personal and communal transformation. DDeeggrreeee TTyyppee Dissertation DDeeggrreeee NNaammee Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) GGrraadduuaattee GGrroouupp Anthropology FFiirrsstt AAddvviissoorr Philippe Bourgois KKeeyywwoorrddss alcohol, Gran Chaco, indigenous studies, performance, Qom, Toba SSuubbjjeecctt CCaatteeggoorriieess Indigenous Studies | Latin American Languages and Societies | Latin American Studies | Social and Cultural Anthropology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1741 FIGHTING WITH WINE: RUIN, RESISTANCE AND RENEWAL IN A QOM COMMUNITY OF NORTHERN ARGENTINA Christopher A. F. Golias A DISSERTATION in Anthropology Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Supervisor of Dissertation Philippe Bougois, Ph.D. Richard Perry University Professor of Anthropology & Family and Community Medicine Graduate Group Chairperson _______________________ Deborah Thomas, Ph.D. Professor of Anthropology and Africana Studies Dissertation Committee Greg Urban, Ph.D. Arthur Hobson Quinn Professor, Anthropology Adriana Petryna, Ph.D. Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in Anthropology ii   FIGHTING WITH WINE: RUIN, RESISTANCE AND RENEWAL IN A QOM COMMUNITY OF NORTHERN ARGENTINA COPYRIGHT 2015 Christopher A. F. Golias iii   Dedication page I dedicate this work to my "traveling partner" Cindy; may it serve as a comely stone upon the cairn marking this waypoint of our life. iv   ACKNOWLEDGMENTS If it takes a village to raise a child, then indeed both a village and a cadre of additional support are needed to write a dissertation. I first thank my committee members for their patience, commentary, and assistance through each stage of the graduate program, especially the dissertation research process. I am particularly appreciative of the advice and encouragement offered me by Philippe Bourgois, Ph.D., without whose step- wise guidance it is unlikely this work would have even come to fruition. I am additionally thankful for ample funding by the Lisa Brody-Foley Fellowship, the Brody Fund for Research in the Social Sciences, Francis Johnston Fellowship and Benjamin Franklin Fellowship through the University of Pennsylvania. Likewise, I am deeply indebted to the generosity of thought displayed by Mark Gruber, Ph.D. and Mariann Váczi, Ph.D. who volunteered to read sections of this manuscript and provided valuable ongoing commentary central to the argument I exposit. I express my sincere gratitude to Claudia Valeggia, Ph.D. for introducing me to the Qom and for facilitating the beginnings of relationships when I arrived to Lot 84 in summer of 2009. It was these meetings that would bloom into the friendships that were signatures of my time with the Qom. Without Claudia’s established community ties, this research would have proved both more lengthy and more difficult. I am immeasurably thankful to the residents of Lot 84 for allowing me to live among them, all the while asking questions which were sometimes difficult to converse about. I offer thanks to all those who agreed to speak with me and offer valuable v   information as I endeavored to understand what proved to be a very multifaceted phenomenon. I am particularly grateful to members of the Qompí rugby team, who welcomed and taught a complete novice in summer 2010. Additionally, without the help of Juan Carlos Caballero and his family, a place to stay in Lot 84 would have been difficult to secure. Above all others, however, I am forever indebted to Amancio Lopez. Amancio served as Qom tutor, translator, field assistant, and advocate—often allowing his reputation to extend to my work. Amancio deserves the gratitude of a friend who will find it difficult to repay all of the goodwill offered him in advance—all I can do is try! Last, I thank my wife Cindy. Her contribution has shifted form from field assistant, to career advisor, to spiritual guru, to editor-consultant, to cheerleader. What never changed was her remarkable, unwavering support. ABSTRACT   FIGHTING WITH WINE: RUIN, RESISTANCE AND RENEWAL IN A QOM COMMUNITY OF NORTHERN ARGENTINA Christopher A. F. Golias Philippe Bourgois, Ph.D. This study examines public binge drinking among the Qom (Toba) ex-foragers of Formosa, northern Argentina. Based upon 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a peri- urban Qom barrio (Lot 84), this analysis relates binge drinking to Qom ethnohistory, community life, and interactions with the Argentine state. The public, performative nature of Qom binge drinking is explored; intoxication is shown to convey in sometimes violent public spectacle the pathos of their socioeconomic marginality, reinforce non- indigenous Argentines’ entrenched perceptions of violent “Indians”, and paradoxically provide the Qom with vehicle for continued colonial resistance. Many Qom view drinking problems as rooted in Lot 84’s close proximity to the city (Formosa) relative to more rural Qom villages. Thus they reference a continuum of health that runs from urban, non-indigenous spaces to the rural bush country where foods—including home-brewed alcohol—are healthful rather than harmful. In kind, the violence and perceived chaos associated with public binge drinking has led to the development of programs intended to stem alcohol use in the community. Locally, counseling efforts are woven in the missions of evangelical churches and the Catholic chapel, while top-down efforts focus upon state- run psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is explored as a paternalistic form of governmental domination and attempted assimilation. Rather than relying upon state-run methods for vii   personal and communal re-integration, many Qom centrally position a period of alcohol use within their personal development narratives, during which alcohol allowed them to find personal responsibility or an improved relationship with God. On a communal level, fighting against public alcohol use among youth has led to increased community solidarity and capacity building through sport, education and indigenous-led program creation. In summary, public binge drinking is manifest in the Qom community not through acculturation or personal pathology, but rather as a multi-valent, ritualesque performance that levies resistance against prevailing social conditions and, despite the profound tax of violence, occasions personal and communal transformation. viii   TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... VI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .......................................................................................................... X CHAPTER 1: FIGHTING WITH WINE: RUIN, RESISTANCE AND RENEWAL IN A QOM COMMUNITY .................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 1 DRINKING WITHIN MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: LOCAL BELIEFS AND GLOBAL CONNECTIONS . 6 DRINKING, RITUALS AND CULTURAL CHANGE ......................................................................... 10 FIELDWORK IN FORMOSA ........................................................................................................... 13 SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS ............................................................................................................ 18 CHAPTER 2: FROM EL MONTE TO EL BARRIO : AN ETHNOHISTORY OF LOT 84 23 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 23 A HISTORY OF THE CHACOAN FORAGERS ................................................................................. 25 Geography and Prehistory ..................................................................................................... 25 Traditional Lifeways .............................................................................................................. 26 Early Colonial History (1500-1880) ...................................................................................... 31 War, Subjugation, Sedentarization and Massacre (1880-1920) ............................................ 33 Proletariatization and Pentecostalism (1920 -1980) ............................................................. 38 De-Industrialization, Diaspora and Legal Reform: 1980-2000 ............................................ 39 Current Status ........................................................................................................................ 41 LOT 84 ........................................................................................................................................ 43 Formation ............................................................................................................................... 43 Lot 84 Today .......................................................................................................................... 46 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 53 CHAPTER 3: PUBLICITY IN QOM BINGE DRINKING .................................................... 54 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 54 “14 Year old girl dies by throwing herself off antenna” ....................................................... 57 PUBLICITY IN QOM DRINKING ................................................................................................... 59 ANTHROPOLOGY AND PERFORMANCE ....................................................................................... 62 THE TRAGIC, THE QUOTIDIAN .................................................................................................... 64 SUBVERSIVE PROFLIGACY ......................................................................................................... 72 PROTESTANT PARADES, INSURGENT INTOXICATION ................................................................. 75 OF NARRATIVE AND PERCEPTION: LOT 84 AND THE CITY ........................................................ 81 FIGHTING WITH WINE: PARADOXES OF VIOLENCE AND DRINK ................................................ 84 CHAPTER 4: THE CONTAGIOUS CITY: CONCEPTUALIZING COMMUNAL ILLNESS ....................................................................................................................................... 87 “HERE, WE ARE SICK WITH THE CITY”: ALCOHOL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED .............................. 87 THE INVISIBLE WORLD OF THE QOM ......................................................................................... 91 LEFT-HANDED GIFTS: DRINK IN ARGENTINA .......................................................................... 100 IN THE MONTE, THE ANCIENT ONES WERE HEALTHY… ............................................................ 107 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 112 CHAPTER 5: THE INDIAN ON THE COUCH: THERAPEUTIC DOMINATION ........ 113 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 113 PSYCHOANALYSIS, POWER AND GOVERNMENTALITY ............................................................. 116