| This work studies the United States cultural diplomacy toward Argentina between 1953 and 1963. First, I show that the bilateral relationship between Argentina and the United States changed dramatically after the diplomatic rapprochement of 1953. The increasing development of the innovative programs of United States cultural diplomacy toward Argentina after 1953 supports such a hypothesis. Second, I maintain that United States cultural diplomacy influenced the Argentinean cultural field heavily. Most of the disciplines and professions that received the incidence of the most powerful American initiatives tended to adopt the exported scientific paradigms, and witnessed the empowerment of the Argentinean scientists, artists and researchers associated to the American field. In addition, the "Americanized" sectors, loaded with the symbolic meaning of imperial practices, saw their credibility affected within the context of Cold War politics and domestic political dispute that permeated the cultural field. Finally, I want to stress that the results of the American diplomatic attempt to exert influence on the Latin American cultural elites were far from predictable. Opposite to the mechanistic, positivistic assumptions of the U.S. social-diplomatic engineers, some of the American field officials not only advised on changing the conditions of certain programs, but even rejected the assumptions of the American scientific paradigms and their own previous perception of Latin America. |
