Between heritage and history. Architectural transformations of a church located in Jujuy Highlands at the face of nation state logics in the 20th century (Coranzulí, Jujuy, Argentina)

Abstract

The religious architectures of northwestern Argentina, mainly built during the colonial period and, to a lesser extent, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are a significant part of their material heritage. This has been registered and valued by different national and international organizations. From their construction to the present day, these churches continued to be part of the life of the communities which they belong because of their ritual significance, which contemplates constructive practices. In this context, different relationships and social meanings are defined between people, spaces, materials and techniques. It is, then, a patrimony that can not be considered in an immanent way, but it is also about social proceses which allow us to think about idea, interest and by the same communities into their relations with other agents. In this article we will analyze the transformations experienced in the church of Coranzulí (Puna of Jujuy) through the study of the actions carried out on it by the town inhabitants throughout the 20th century. For this, we will rely on two types of record: the ethnographic one, produced from the field work we have been doing since 2012, and the documentary one, based on graphic and written sources produced both locally and institutionally throughout of the 20th century. We will consider the relationship that the constructive operations carried out on the church have had with the different processes of institutionalization of the local architectures that occurred in the context of the insertion of the herders in the logics of the national state and, simultaneously, of their architectures into patrimonial valuation standards.