Rural colonization with immigrants in mid-twentieth century Argentina: an ephemeral developmental drive promoted by ICEM

Abstract

Rural colonization with immigrants in Argentina is often considered a phenomenon confined to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By contrast, the later decades of the fifties and sixties are considered the era of industrialization. The objective of this article is to determine the extent to which this immigrant colonization was present in the Argentine government’s plans in the middle of the century, to place these projects in an international context dominated by the developmentalist ideology, and to analyse the practical results of cooperation on the issue with the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM). To do so, I use mainly primary sources (including official correspondence, reports and proceedings) from the Argentine administration and the aforementioned Committee, as well as press articles and quantitative information.