Oftentimes discussions regarding construction of Argentine national identity during the period of national consolidation revolve around the spaces of Buenos Aires, the pampas (“plains”), and more recently, Patagonia. However, little mention is made of the Argentine jungle. In fact, with the possible exception of Horacio Quiroga in the early twentieth century, this region is largely overlooked. Nonetheless, in the early part of the twentieth century, Mexican writer and critic José Vasconcelos not only mentioned the territory of Misiones, but imagined it as the potential center of civilization for Argentina, and for all of South America. This essay will examine the first text produced post-1880 regarding the territory of Misiones. It briefly contextualizes the author, Alejo Peyret, with respect to this period in Argentine history, analyzes the particularities of the jungle as an alternative locus of enunciation, and defines the gaze that Misiones elicited from this first traveler-writer of the modern nation. In essence, this article proposes the jungle space as an alternate space for the conceptualization of Argentine identity during the period of national consolidation and seeks to differentiate it from those territories traditionally associated with the Argentine identity at the time.
