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Journal of Social Archaeology ARTICLE
Copyright © 2002 SAGE Publications (London,Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol 2(3): 402–429 [1469-6053(200210)2:3;402–429;027914]
Philosophy and historical archaeology
Foucault and a singular technology of power development at
the borderlands of eenth-century Argentina
FACUNDO GOMEZ ROMERO
Museo Etnográfico y Archivo Histórico ‘Enrique Squirru’de Azul,Buenos Aires,
Argentina
ABSTRACT
This article addresses the application of a series of key concepts of
Foucault’s thought, as developed in Discipline and Punish and other
works, in the context of interior frontiers with Indians in eenth-
century Argentina. It tests the premise that a particular technology
of power existed in this historical context that operated on every
social level, impacting strongly on the lower classes that inhabited the
incorrectly named ‘desert’. Its implementation in the military field
enabled the existence of an array of micro-powers that surrounded
the gaucho-soldiers and their women’s lives. This schema was adopted
in different areas: in the enrollment and discipline of the gauchos, in
life in the fortlet-prisons and in the ritualism of power. The alterna-
tive chosen by soldiers to evade this technology of power and the
fortlet-panopticons was escape through desertion. The utility of these
observations is demonstrated with reference to the archaeology of the
border regions in Argentina, and their wider applicability noted for
other contexts with similar problems.
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Gomez Romero Philosophy and historical archaeology 403
KEYWORDS
desert ● desertion ● discipline ● fortlets ● gauchos ● micro-
powers ● panopticon ● technology of power
■ INTRODUCTION
An important part of the area of research of historical archaeology that has
developed with the greatest impetus in Argentina has taken fortlets as its
subje