Rules for the Water: The Transformation of Aquatic Practices in Argentina (1925–1939)

Between 1925 and 1939, in an Argentine context marked by processes related to hygienism, eugenics and the expansion of physical culture, a series of manuals on aquatic practices were published that shaped the relationship between bodies and water: they configured corporealities, habits and uses of the body in the water. A historiographical reading of four historical sources published during this period helps understand normative devices that articulated pedagogical configurations, moral discourses, and practices of bodily disciplining. During the period there is a transition between the art of swimming and sportsmanship, where the historical sources account for a process of modern subjectivation, crossed by ideals of self-control, efficiency, and health. The manuals are approached beyond their technical dimension, as cultural archives that crystallize social values and aquatic imaginaries, aligned with broader transformations in the relationship between body, citizenship, and technique. Far from being marginal, these sources shed light on a little-explored area of the social history of the body in Argentina and show how people were taught to swim not only to survive in the water, but also to inhabit an aquatic corporeality within the framework of a national process.