Going Underground: Banal Nationalism and Subterranean Elements in Argentina’s Falklands/Malvinas Claim

Abstract

This paper calls for consideration of underground elements that have been typically overlooked or unseen in debates about the nation and banal nationalism. The materialities and (re)presentation of elements like earth, sand and rock have the capacity to be affective, contentious, to embody intimate memories of conflict and to reinforce national territorial aspirations. These subterranean elements have been 'nationalised', bathymetrically mapped and deployed by Argentina to make claims over territories in the South Atlantic, including the Falklands/Malvinas. Rather than reexamining these technical procedures undertaken by the state and analysing what they mean for the geopolitics of the South Atlantic, this paper explores how the subterranean is manifest in everyday reproductions of nationalism and national memory in Argentina. It presents insights from research undertaken in a range of different environments in Argentina, encompassing museums, veterans' centres and public monuments, to demonstrate how the presence of the elemental in the everyday can reinforce and also disrupt banal (territorial) nationalism. Furthermore it argues for conceptualisation of the elemental as part of a relational network that links matter, national citizenries and territories together. The conclusion posits that the subterranean elements and their (re)presentation are essential to understanding the materialisation of banal nationalism as part of the everyday reproduction and rejection of claims to 'national' territory.

Forging volumetric methods

“…Practices of the state and military strategy are foregrounded, with interventions guided by questions of calculation, exploitation, “control, enclosure and exclusion” (Squire & Dodds, 2020, p. 4; see also Elden, 2013; Hawkins, 2020; Squire, 2016; Slesinger, 2020). These interventions have been pivotal in shaping articulations of “volume” and the formation of a “rhetoric of volumetry” attentive to issues of territorialisation, access, control, and conflict (Benwell, 2020, p. 93). This rhetoric, however, privileges “certain kinds of space, actions, relations,” and visions (Campbell, 2019, pp.…”

Everyday invasions: Fuckland, geopolitics, and the (re)production of insecurity in the Falkland Islands

“…Our intrigue in the film emerged having conducted lengthy periods of research in Argentina and the Falkland Islands with different communities, exploring a range of topics related to the geopolitics of the sovereignty dispute (see Benwell, 2016Benwell, , 2019Benwell, , 2020Pinkerton, 2008). Interviewees in the Falklands often recalled previous unexpected 'intrusions' including the landing of Argentine aircraft in the Islands in 1964Islands in , 1966Islands in and 1968; the planting of flags on outlying islands from Argentine-registered boats; and, more recently, the release in 2012 of a secretly-filmed advertisement starring an Argentine athlete training for the London Olympics on the streets of Stanley (Pinkerton and Benwell, 2014).…”

“…This apparent d etente has ushered in some practical signs of cooperation in the South Atlantic region. Proposed exchanges of fishery data between Argentine and Falkland Islands' authorities are being actively discussed, identification of the remains of Argentine soldiers buried at Darwin cemetery has been undertaken by the Red Cross, and an additional flight between Latin America and the Falkland Islands (from Sao Paulo in Brazil) has been announced (see Benwell, 2020;. While the UK's Prime Minister, Theresa May, and the Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, Alan Duncan, were hailing the potential investment opportunities for British business in Argentina, the response of the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) and some Islanders to the incoming administration in Buenos Aires has been rather more circumspect (Governor's Office Stanley, 2017).…”

Territoryincognita

“…For Adey (2010b: 21), the immersive immensity of the atmosphere produces agile fighter pilots as ‘aerial subjects’, cultivated ‘through the aeroplane’s relation with the nation, state and territoriality’. Benwell (2017: 17) argues that extracted earth from the Falklands/Malvinas reinforced ‘affective connections to national territory’ through public exhibitions, activating an ‘elemental nationalism’. Whether focused on, below or above ground, this research on affective territory can, as some scholars have urged (Elden, 2013b; Grove, 2019; Klinke, 2018), provide a basis for integrating biopolitics and geopolitics: ‘the corporeal is a crucial aspect of territory’ (Elden, 2018: 217).…”