When “god and country demand it”: about the queer (im)possibility of Argentine “folklore”

Abstract

In recent years, our music and our dances have been questioned with respect to its prescription to sexogendered identities that has gradually become outdated due to the recent recognition of the queer theory.  Although being a result of the early modern period, both folk music and dances are based on heteronormative codes that seem to be reluctant to accept the queer theory. Having based this investigation on an ethnographic research carried out mainly in gatherings and performance of female musicians dedicated to “folklore” in Santiago del Estero, Tucumán, and Córdoba, I analyse throughout this article, these new sex and gender features displayed in tango, which were primarily accepted in relation to what is now known as the queer theory. These characteristics in the “traditional” folklore were not contemplated or even considered a taboo. It is strongly assumed that this social belief and its consequent queer impossibility is based on a specific foundational articulation among nation, gender and religiosity while this musical-dance complex stands "from the inside" of the nation as the main emblem of the gaucho founding myth.