The Invention of a Tradition: Preliminary Periodization for a Historical Research Program on Murga in Chile. 19th–21st Centuries

Abstract

The development of studies and research on the continental expansion of Uruguayan carnival rhythms is still in its infancy. A growing cultural history of the practice of murga beyond Argentina and Uruguay has not yet been properly recognized. This paper seeks to address this historical gap in a field where some work has already been done. It proposes a three-stage periodization of the history of murgas in Chile from the 19th century to the present, defined by a complex relationship —or lack thereof— between the different strands of the style in the Southern Cone. This periodization is then posed as a perspective for analysis for a research program on this history spanning more than a century. Finally, based on all of the above, it is argued that it is possible to construct a tradition of murga in Chile that is parallel to and feeds back into, rather than being merely dependent on, the Uruguayan style, by recovering its history and thus inventing a tradition.