Ithaca College

Jonathan Ablard presented "The Quiet Militarization of Everyday Life in Argentina, 1901-1955” at the annual MACLAS Conference at Muhlenberg College on March 9, 2018 

Dr. Ablard's paper argues that the Argentine armed forces were the single most important element of nation- and state-building during the first half of the twentieth century. This paper provides a broad overview of the major tasks of the military that served to simultaneously integrate distant provinces into the national fabric and create and reinforce the military’s authority and power in those some areas. Areas of particular concern in this work were military surveillance of civilians (often coordinated with Ministry of Interior), the symbiotic relationship of local civilians with nearby military installations, public health and infrastructure work that served to improve the material well-being of civilians, and military-operated industrial enterprises that employed civilians. This work is inspired by compelling new literature for Mexico, Brazil, and the United States that have explored how a broad process of militarization of everyday life shaped the material and ideological process of nation building.