Discourses on the banning of guaraní in a rural school institutional history in Corrientes: tensions and contradictions in the memories of the protagonists.

Abstract

This paper presents a preview of the analysis concerning the way in which the discourse of the prohibition of Guarani has operated in the historic institutional account of a rural primary school in Corrientes. Using a historical-situational and collaborative ethnography approach this work analyzes how the uses and senses of Guarani and Castilian have been organized along the fifty years of institutional life of the school. In a previous study developed in collaboration with children and school teachers the zone was sociolinguistically characterized, being possible to establish that a high percentage of the families of the place are bilingual in some degree (2011-2014). Questions at the time arose in order to understand how the present sociolinguistic situation has come into the picture, since initially the school headmistress and teachers assumed that "Guarani is not talked any longer here." Therefore, trying to answer these questions we initiated a project in 2014 focusing on the historic institutional account of this school. The overall aim of the research was to understand the current uses and senses of Guarani and Castilian at present, based on the memoirs of former teachers, ex pupils and settlers, as well on memoirs and practices of teachers and students nowadays and the school documentary sources. The historic institutional account of the school is described in four stages according to the management of successive headmasters. Uses and senses of Guarani and Castilian are analyzed in each of those stages and shed light on the tensions and contradictions caused by the discourse of the prohibition of Guarani