Health reconfigurations in indianos ’ narratives

The article provides a comprehensive view of the dynamics between degeneration and regeneration discourses at the end of the nineteenth century, based on a comparative study of Spanish author Joaquín Costa’s Oligarquía y Caciquismo and Uruguayan writer Enrique Rodó’s Ariel . The degeneration theories prevalent at the time were based on the debate surrounding the fate of Anglo-Saxon versus Latin countries, as well as a post-Darwinian use of botanic and medical rhetoric to sustain those debates. In the works mentioned, the political leader was characterized by his authoritative approach to power. In contrast, the article further explores the press produced by indianos , a very diverse group of over one million Spaniards who emigrated to the Americas and came back to their native soil. Often, in the press, the ideal figure of the indiano is represented as the healthy, democratic alternative for Spain. Following this transatlantic approach of the need to deconstruct given paradigms of degeneration theories and (predesti)nation, the article contests the role of Castille and intrahistoria as the privileged loci of historiographic approaches to recommend a more dynamic and interconnected view of both concepts. As such, unquestioned views of an assumption of degeneration-historiographic discourses are no longer recommended.