Diminishing returns, normal science or specialization: reflections on a quarter of a century of historical studies on Peronism

Abstract

Since approximately the year 2000, historical studies on Peronism have shown renewed encouragement in Argentina. This historiographic flowering had two main phases and followed three logics. The two phases were constituted by a notorious interest in the first Peronism (1945-1955) during the 2000-2010 period, and then by the Peronism after 1955 with special emphasis for the 1955-1976 segment. The history of Peronism in the 1980s and 1990s produced significant studies, but it is plausible to argue that these are decades whose deployment in research is ongoing. The logics of the new historiography were three. The first consisted of reformulating or debating classical interpretations. This was the case with respect to economic history (was there a Peronist industrialization?), the history of the unionized working class (what were both the nature and the meaning of the sectoral conflicts?, was the labor movement “heteronymous”?) and the history of Peronism “in the interior of the country”. The second logic of innovation consisted of making visible issues previously considered unnecessary research: the Peronist Party, the General Confederation ofLabor, associationism, the "second lines" of leadership, the left and Peronism, science and technology, the intelligentsia. Peronist, among others. Finally, a third novelty entered through the door of recent academic trends. This is what happened with thehistory of gender, consumption, sexuality, affections, the racial and the public. This paper proposes a conceptual and historiographical synthesis and balance of almost a quarter of a century of “renovative” studies. He tries to evaluate what interpretative changes were verified, he wonders if they were able to propose new readings and what were their analytical performances in the development that the elapsed time enables them to think.