Paraguay as Borderland: Guaraní Territory? The Paraguay Guazú? The Southern Cone? Food for thought.

“The Guaraní Territory”

Recently, a good article about Paraguay’s centrality in the a “Guaraní Territory” entitled “First Take: Shaping the Guarani Territory” was published by ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America by Jorge Silvetti and Graciela Silvestri.  Focusing on common linguistic, cultural, geographic, and historical similarities of the region the article offers an excellent historiographic argument for studying the region as a whole rather than through the lens of national historiography.  This is a point that I cannot disagree with at all.  It is a position that I strongly agree with and one that I have sought to engage with in my own published works.

Overcoming Nationalism

Nevertheless, nationalism continues to plague the historiography of Paraguay and the region. This is particurally true in Paraguayan historiography itself that has, for at least the past 100 years, argued for Paraguayan linguistic, cultural, geographic, and historic exceptionalism – exactly the points that the Jorge Silvetti and Graciela Silvestri take aim at. An important paper that address this issue in Spanish  – in my opinion – is Lorena Soler’s article.  In this well thought out essay, she narrates the myth of Paraguay’s “desconociemiento [unknowness]” or “excepcionalidad [exceptionalism].” As a student of the Chaco War era for the past 15 years of my life, Soler’s statement that “the Chaco War [along with the Paraguayan War (1864-1870)] has had political and economic consequences that are still being felt in [Paraguay’s] neighboring countries” rings true.  (As a side note the strong evidence of national historiography always comes to the fore when Argentine historians date the Paraguay to 1865 – the beginning of its military participation.) Yet, strong Paraguayan nationalism (and Argentine, Brazilian, and Bolivian), combined with belief of Paraguayan exceptionalism, and the notion that it is too “exotic” to be known or connected to the region more broadly continue haunt the regional historiography and social science literature

I have hope that this might be changing.

The Paraguay “Guazú”

At an AHA conference in Washington DC in January 2015 Michael Huner organized a panel for the Rio de la Plata Subsection of the Conference on Latin American History entitled “Borderlands and Common Cultures: Transnational Histories of the Rio de la Plata.”  I was invited to participate and gave a paper entitled “Paraguay Guazú: Larger than It’s National Boundaries. (Guazú means “big” in Guaraní.)  In the presentation at the AHA I argued that Paraguay is a “big” borderland. I noted that this is how Paraguay should be studied.  That with Brazil, the Paraguayans and the Brazilians encountered each others language/culture/politics/and environmental challenges (to name a few).  I also noted that with a large territorial holding in the South American Chaco, Paraguay bordered and encountered its Andean cousins.  In Argentina (specifically Corrientes), the Paraguayan/Argentines are more than cousins, they are siblings.  These political, economic, and what I consider “familiar” relationship has meant – to me at least – that Paraguay should be studies as a Paraguay “guazú.” Works that I have participated in including the new edited volume  Big Water: Environment, Belonging, and Development in the Borderlands of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay (where I have a chapter) are part of a small, but growing body of literature that move beyond the national (and the exceptional) in the region.

The Southern Cone

This year in Barcelona at the Latin American Studies Association conference, over a few glasses of wonderful local wine, a historian of Southern Brazil, Glen Goodman, a historian of Argentina, Ben Bryce, and myself also asked the same question, but in a different way:  What is this “Southern Cone” (Chile and Patagonia included here) that academics speak/write of and how can we (or should we) use it as a method of understanding the region?  To be fair, Glen, Ben, and I did not exactly come to any specific conclusions, but the conversation was certainly not unique. What is becoming increasingly clear to me, is that historians – and to be fair other social scientists as well – are challenging the notion that Paraguay and nations of the region are to be studied independently.  My own edited volume on the Chaco War that considers the War in a Bolivia/Paraguay context, the Rebekah Pite‘s future project on regional Yerba Mate, and many more future projects that I do not even know about along with papers written by Silvestri/Silvestre need to be read.  Specifically I wish that the work of Soler gets more attention – and citations – that the conversation organized by Mike Huner at the AHA continue, and the question that Glen and Ben continue to be asked.

I must say that there is not more of an exciting time to be a “Paraguayan Guazú-ist” than now.

Bridget María Chesterton
Professor of History
Buffalo State

 

 

“Don’t Do It” – A Passionate and Cautionary Tale from Non-Paraguayanists

Becoming and Being a Scholar of Paraguay

This usually involves being on the receiving end of strange looks from “other” Latin American scholars (let alone scholars of other nations/regions.)

These are some of the highlights of comments I have gotten from other scholars (names removed to protect the innocent academics from themselves.)

Conversation #1 

Famous Scholar #1: “You will never get a job.”
Me:  “I still want to study Paraguay.”
Famous Scholar #1: “Your family is from Argentina. Do that.”
Me:  “I want to study Paraguay.”
Famous Scholar #1:  “You will never get a job.”

Conversation #2

Famous Scholar #2:  “You want to study Paraguay? Have you been there?”
Me:  “Yes.”
Famous Scholar #2:  “And you still want to study it?”

Conversation #3

Famous Scholar #3:  “Nobody expected the Paraguayans to win the Chaco War.”
Me: “The Paraguayans did.”
Famous Scholar #3: “Oh.”

Converstation 4

Academic Friend: “Hi ‘famous scholar #4.’ Let me introduce you to Bridget Chesterton.”
Famous Scholar #4:  “Oh, your the Paraguayist.”
Me:  “Yes, I am!”
Voice In My Head: “Yes!  I can study Paraguay and have a job and be someone!”

Lessons learned (or not learned) from the Above Conversations:

1. You will not get a job.
2. Paraguay is terrible. 
3. Academics think Paraguay is invisible.
4. Paraguay is worth studying.

Follow Your Passions?

I do not believe in following your passions.  There are a couple of reasons behind this philosophy.

1.  It is an overused word.  Other words in this category include – but are not limited to – “very,” “amazing,” “big,” “horrible,” “tremendous.”  I will stop now, but clearly I could go on.
2. A scholar is not passionate about what they study.  They are curious and interested in questions.  There is a difference.  I am passionate about my husband, my following of the Argentine fútbal (during the World Cup) team… But overall, I am not passionate about Paraguayan history.  In other words, passions can let you down or diminish over time. (Sorry Jim – mmm…. I better stop now.)
3. I am curious and interested in Paraguayan history.  I have lots of questions that I am seeking responses to.  I got this way because:
   1. There is always something new to discover in the archives about Paraguayan history.
   2. There are lots and lots of unanswered questions.
   3. I always have a “new” twist (questions) on the way fellow Latin Americanists see the region and ask questions.
   4. I can teach people about Paraguay now.  Few people on this planet can do that!
   5. I am part of a pequeño but, tight group of scholars who are awesome. See a brief list of those people in the secondary texts section of this blog. They have asked questions and gotten responses; but that only begs for more questions! Such is academic life.
   6. I like different.

If you are interested and curious (have questions) in a particular topic/region/time, study it.  Do not let other academics drive your career.  Drive your own career.  If that means studying Paraguay, then do so.

The rest will simply be history (or future blog post fodder.)

Bridget María Chesterton
Professor of History
Buffalo State

 

 

 

 

Most Commonly Asked Question

Bridget and Her “Nona” Maria Margarita Tita de Gaido in Asunción (August 1989)

How did you become interested in Paraguay?

This question has been posed by academics, friends, and acquaintances many times over the years to all of those who study the landlocked nation of eight million.

Many of my academic friends who study Paraguay became interested in the history and academics for the following short reasons:

1.  They are Paraguayan
2.  They were missionaries to Paraguay at some point
3.  They worked for the U.S. Peace Corps in Paraguay
4.   They have family in Paraguay
5.   They married a Paraguayan (close to reason #3)
6.   They are Mennonite (also close to reason #3)
7.   Some business tie to Paraguay
8.   They are Anthony Bourdain and their great great great grandfather died there

I should note that this list is entirely unscientific and based only on conversations with fellow academics (I only know of Bourdain because he had a whole show about it.)

I do not have any of these particular narratives.  My story of of Paraguay comes from family in Argentina. Which while are geographically close are two certainly not one and the same.

Paraguay and Argentina in relation to one another.

Specifically, my mother was born in Córdoba, Argentina (I’ll leave the year out as not to embarrass her.)  But a lot of her family remained (and remain) in Argentina when she immigrated to the States.  I was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Location of Córdoba, Argentina where Mom was born.

 

In 1989, I was visiting my family – living with my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Córdoba.  That year the Argentine peso was in free fall.  It was the era of hyper-inflation. As a result, traveling in Argentina on the U.S. dollar was quite inexpensive.  My parents were able to pay for some nice trips for me including a wonderful trip to Bariloche with my Aunt and cousins and a trip to Iguazú Falls.

I traveled to Iguazú with my grandparents, Carlos and Maria.  The bus tour we were on went through Asunción, Paraguay.  We were given a guided tour of Asunción and saw many of the tourist attractions of the city.  The Panteón de Heroes, the Palacio de los López, and went to one of Asunción’s famous dinner/music/dance shows.  It was great.

But what I most loved about Paraguay was not the tourist attractions, but how it was not Argentina.  It was the first time in my life when I felt out of place, like a real tourist.  Because I had been traveling to Argentina since I was a small child, I felt at home in Argentina.  I knew the food, the language, the culture.  I had a strong connection to Argentina.

In Paraguay I did not.

I tired palmitos (hearts of palm) for the first time.  Saw people drinking tereré.  Heard Guaraní.  I was hooked.

When I went to graduate school, first at the University of New Mexico and later at Stony Brook, I knew I wanted to study Paraguay.  And I did!

The rest is history.

Bridget María Chesterton

Professor of History

Buffalo State

Genaro Romero and Digitalizing My Collection

When I was writing my dissertation “several” years back, I got interested in a Paraguayan from the early twentieth century named Genaro Romero.  His extensive collection of published writings were difficult to track down.  But the Museo Andres Barbero in Asunción did have a collection of his work for the Boletín de la Direccion de tierras y colonias and after weeks of investigation I came to find out that the Universidad Iberoamerica del Paraguay (UNIBE) has an extensive collection of his work in their archive.  I was also able to purchase a few volumes of the Boletín from used bookstores in Asunción.  In all honesty I never came back with that much material, but enough to make me wonder what I was going to do with it when I was “done” with it.  The though that so much material was available for purchase in used books stores is avaible for sale to foreigners and locals alike is problematic.  It means that much material ends up in the hands of private collectors or in archives outside the country and as such as as is not always accessible to historians and the Paraguayan public in general.

Year I No. 1 (1926)

A Decade Later

It has been over a decade since this material has landed in Western New York and over 4 years since the book on which my dissertation was based was published by the University of New Mexico Press (The Grandchildren of Solano Lopez: Frontier and Nation in Paraguay 1904-1936) and yet much of the material I brought back from Paraguay sits on a shelf.  Over the years I have begun to digitalize some of the material and posted it to my academic page on Academia.edu.  But, Academica.edu does not allow for larger files, so much of the material I have been unable to “publish.”  More importantly, Academia.edu requires uses to have an account (although free) to view the material.  This means that much of the material is still unaccessible to a larger group of users.  I want to start to change that in my own small way.  I am hoping that I can use this site to publish more of the material that I have begun to digitalize.  Also, once digitalized, I am going to start sending the original material back to Paraguay, where it belongs.

Genaro Romero

Today we start with Genaro Romero and his Boletín.  He was a Paraguayan agronomist and the minister of the Department of Land and Colonies in Paraguay.  The journal he published under the name of the department began in 1926 (I do not know the end date of the journal) and emphasized the following in the first 10 numbers that I have digitalized as a .pdf:

• The efforts of the Paraguayan government to bring immigrant to the country
• Agricultural products that could be grown in Paraguay with ease
• The importance of the Chaco frontier in the development of the nation
• Various types of Paraguayan mining and industry
• Facts and figures including but not limited to trade, agronomy, population, immigration statistics, land, water
• Various laws pertaining to land and land usage in Paraguay
• Mennonite colonization
• Wood products and production

This is not an inclusive listing of the material he published, nor have I digitalized the collection I have in its entirely yet.  But over the next few months I hope to have more of his material available to the public and am eager to return the originals to the land from which they came.

Genaro Romero

The above link is to the a .pdf of the the first for numbers of the Boletín de la Dirección de tierras y colonias (1926, 1927) No. 1-4

Genaro Romero 2

This link is for the numbers 1-10 of Boletín de la Direcctión de tierras y colonias (1927-1928)

Bridget María Chesterton, Professor of History, Buffalo State

Politics as Usual in Paraguay

This past Sunday Paraguayans went to the polls and elected Mario Abdo Benítez to a five-year term as president. His close personal ties to the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) and – Abdo is the son of Stroessner’s former personal secretary – has warranted scrutiny from Paraguayan leftists. Many human rights activists, historians, and social scientist have denounced Stroessner’s infamous authoritarianism and anyone associated with the regime. The Paraguayan people, however, remember a different narrative – one that focuses on economics and vast improvements in everyday life in Paraguay. Today, many working, middle, and upper class recollections about the dictatorship focus on economic and cultural successes. Moreover, Paraguayans fondly and openly reminisce about low rates of petty crime on the streets of Asunción, Paraguay’s capital city during the dictatorship.

During Stroessner’s long rule he held power by not only promising real economic growth, but also delivering life-changing infrastructure projects, improving household purchasing power, while simultaneously increasing economic ties to Brazil. Stroessner’s government brought running water to Asunción in the mid-1960s. The first hydroelectric dam (Acaray) in Paraguay began illuminating and air-conditioning homes in the late 1960s; by the 1970s even more homes and businesses could enjoy the comforts of electricity from the copious production of what was then the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, Itapú. Stroessner’s regime made travel – notoriously difficult in the early twentieth century – accessible by building roads, bridges, and improving air travel. This meant that for the first time Paraguayans could (and did) travel to Brazil to enjoy the sunny vacation beaches or even sojourn to Europe or the United States. Significantly, the regime also steadied the price of the Guaraní – the Paraguayan currency. A steady exchange rate meant that Paraguayans purchased new consumer goods from abroad, including autos, domestic appliances, canned foods, and exotic liquors.

Everyday life improved dramatically with the opening of supermarkets, shopping centers, hotels, restaurants with live entertainment, and clean and tidy streets. The regime immortalized these improvements in highly controlled press recounting the numerous ways in which life was improving daily under the regime. Examples recounted in the press included improved education opportunities, art gallery openings with local and international artists, and large opulent homes and buildings in Asunción. Photos in tourists guides, stamps, and postcards of the era immortalized this transition. These developments changed how Paraguayans viewed themselves and their nation. They were no longer a small isolated landlocked nation, but rather a booming power in the center of South America.

Although the Stroessner’s Colorado Party has held power in Paraguay for all but a brief interlude under Fernando Lugo (2008-2012) the election of Abdo has once again brought to the fore today’s Paraguayan successes. Paraguay today after five-years of Horacio Cartes is in many ways prosperous and stable. New flashy skyscrapers line the landscape, new shopping opportunities open daily in Asunción, and a stable economy funded by high agricultural prices and investments in infrastructure has meant that Paraguayans of a certain class travel widely. The less palpable side of politics and life in Paraguay, such as the murder of journalists, student protests, corruption, encroachment by agro-business on indigenous and peasant lands, infringements on women’s rights, and smuggling have been subsumed by a narrative of success, much like the current memory of the Stroessner regime. Although the end of Stroessner’s authoritarian government came almost twenty years ago, the policies and economics of the era survive and thrive.

Bridget María Chesterton – Professor of History, Buffalo State

Mario Abdo Benítez Elected President of Paraguay

President Elect Mario Abdo Benítrz.  Photo by Mike Kunz, used with Permission.

Paraguay Elects a President

Sunday April 22, 2018, Paraguayans delivered a clear victory to the incumbent Colorado Party, who retained the Presidency.  The party has won thirteen of seventeen governorships and appeared to hold their majority in both houses of Congress. By a comfortable margin of four percent, Mario Abdo Benítez of the conservative wing of Colorado Party defeated Efraín Alegre from the liberal GANAR alliance to extend the Colorado Party’s near 70-year run of unbroken control of the executive branch.

​Abdo, 46, who coasted to an expected victory, is known for his family ties to Paraguay’s former dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled Paraguay from 1954-1989 in South America’s longest continuous dictatorship. Abdo’s father, also named Mario Abdo Benitez, was the personal secretary and close confidant of General Stroessner, whose well-documented humans rights abuses during his thirty-five year rule included disappearances, torture, and murder of political opponents, dissidents, homosexuals, and other targeted groups.

​Abdo Jr., known – by the diminutive “Marito” to his supporters to distance himself from his father – inherits a country with a briskly growing economy that has outpaced its much larger neighbors Argentina and Brazil. Yet, Paraguay, which has the population of Massachusetts spread out over a territory the size of California, faces a range of economic and political challenges in the coming years.

Back to the Future

​In the final stretch of the campaign, both candidates sought to paint this weekend’s election as a referendum on the Colorado Party itself. Marito, who fought off a difficult primary challenge, successfully unified the splintered Colorados through the force of sheer partisanship, demanding loyalty that his future cabinet sport the iconic red Colorado pañuelo (handkerchief). On the other hand, the defeated liberal candidate Alegre repeatedly linked Marito to his deceased father and to the unpopular incumbent president, the multi-billionaire Horacio Cartes.

​ Throughout the campaign, Marito made a series of attempts to separate himself from his father’s legacy, routinely criticizing the human rights violations of the dictatorship. Yet for many, these statements fell flat, as they often came bookended by defenses of the dictatorship’s infrastructure projects. On election day, Marito sent a strong final message of support to the Colorado vanguard with an elaborately staged visit to his father’s mausoleum in Asunción’s grand Recoleta cemetery. Ultimately, his embrace of the Colorado Party élites paid off; the Colorado Party, the party of General Stroessner, has by now far outlived the General himself. Next year will ring in the fourth decade of Paraguay’s young democracy, yet no non-Colorado president has served a complete term since Stroessner seized power in 1954^[1]. Marito’s election extends uninterrupted Colorado rule past its sixtieth anniversary, and is a resounding affirmation of the old party elite’s continued grip on power.

Moving Water Ahead

​While Paraguay’s macroeconomic indicators remain strong, the country’s economy has some underlying weaknesses. To maintain the nation on its current growth trajectory, Marito must address both Paraguay’s low levels of tax collection and its low levels of investment in infrastructure, health, and education. Many of these problems have their roots in the nature of Paraguay’s economy, which remains largely informal. These challenges are all the more pressing given the impending renegotiation of the Itaipú hydroelectric dam treaty with Paraguay’s next-door-neighbor, Brazil. This treaty, set to expire after fifty years in 2023, allows Paraguay to sell its excess power generated by Itaipu (which routinely generates more power than even China’s Three Gorges Dam) to electricity-hungry Brazil. Currently, compensation for sales of excess power amount to about two percent of Paraguay’s annual GDP. Yet some experts believe that Paraguay is being severely underpaid, and that a new agreement could increase payments by as much as a factor of ten. An advance renegotiation in 2009 already yielded Paraguay an extra $240 million a year. Marito’s defeated opponent, Alegre, seized on these figures and promised to slash energy costs for Paraguayans. Depending on the terms of the new treaty, Abdo has an opportunity to achieve an enormous economic windfall for Paraguay

Paraguay’s Turn

​With the results of yesterday’s elections, Paraguay dutifully follows fellow southern cone countries in the rightward shift marching across the Americas. Both Chile and Argentina have already chosen new right-leaning heads of state, and Latin American powerhouses Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia all have high-stakes presidential elections slated for 2018. With the ascent of Marito, whose opposing ticket’s vice-presidential candidate Leo Rubin expressed sympathy for the Venezuelan regime, Paraguay has aligned itself with the current political reality of its Andean neighbors.

The next five years will be critical for Paraguay. As economic development continues to proceed rapidly, addressing Paraguay’s broken tax system and severe income inequality will be crucial. While the Congressional election results are still being tallied, the Colorado Party appears more dominant today than it has been in recent memory. Marito can take advantage of his electoral mandate and enact the reforms necessary to keep Paraguay on the path to growth and inclusive development.

^[1] The only non-Colorado president to even be elected was the former priest Fernando Lugo, who served as President from 2008-2012 until a scandal over his illegitimate children led to his removal from power.

Samuel Fishman lives in Paraguay where he teaches with an English Teaching Assistant Fulbright grant from the U.S. Department of State. He graduated from Tulane University with a B.A. in Political Economy. He is originally from Baltimore, Maryland.

Anti-congress protesters set Paraguay’s congress building on fire March 31, 2017. The flames emanating from the building could leave Paraguay, and, perhaps even more alarming, other Latin American nation’s fragile democracies in smoldering ruins.

In June of 2012, Paraguay experienced what journalists and political scientists labeled at that time a “parliamentary coup” or “soft coup.” That event shocked Latin Americans as a rapid-fire impeachment removed President Fernando Lugo from office within hours, clearly violating guidelines established by the Paraguayan constitution. The chain of events began in the town of Curuguaty where seventeen peasants and policemen were killed in a shootout. The Paraguayan congress blamed Lugo for mismanagement of the event and gave him less than 24 hours to prepare for his trial. Although the stacks of documents produced by the congress demonstrated that the events of June 2012 were long in the making behind the scene, the public trial was nothing short of a political blitzkrieg. On television the night before the trial, Lugo’s lawyer desperately pleaded for more time to review the documents and make a case. No such time was ever given. Lugo was removed from power and, like the more recent case in Brazil, the vice president, a member of an opposition party, took control.

At the time of the Paraguayan events, Dilma Rousseff, the then president of Brazil, reacted strongly to Paraguay’s political crisis. Her government led the movement within Mercosur, the South American trade block, to temporarily suspend the landlocked nation from the organization in protest of the unprecedented action by the Paraguayan Congress. She recognized the dangerous precedent set by Paraguay and knew that if allowed to proceed unchecked by international power, parliamentary coups could be normalized and could threaten her own weak presidency. She was correct. Last year, the Brazilian Senate held impeachment proceedings and removed Rousseff on questionable corruption charges. At the time she told the press that it was a coup. Significantly, the route taken earlier by the Paraguayans was normalized by its much larger and more powerful neighbor. This last yet another Latin American government moved to undermine democracy and further normalized constitutional irregularities in the region. Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela, has for the past several years moved to ensure that members of the judiciary are loyal only to him, undermining any sense of judiciary independence. As a result, in the midst of a profound economic crisis, the Supreme Court of Venezuela announced a ruling that gave unto itself all legislative power, clearly ignoring constitutional authority. The result is that Maduro, is now, for all practical purposes, in control of all branches of government.

These recent constitutional irregularities  been with vocal protest and violence. On Friday March 31, 2017  in Asunción civilians assaulted the congress building. This was the result of the decision by the Paraguayan Senate to alter the process of presidential transition on Friday, violence erupted. Earlier in the week, twenty-five Paraguayan Senators from a variety of political parties cobbled together a strange coalition to support the change in congressional procedure and amend the constitution illegally. Fernando Lugo, the President who was removed by dubious impeachment proceedings in 2012 – and who is currently a member of the Senate – and Horacio Cartes – current President of Paraguay and a leading player in the 2012 coup – are the individuals behind the most recent proceedings and are to blame for the violence. At least one death is being blamed on the violence. Moreover, rubber bullets wounded Roberto Acevedo, the President of the Paraguayan Senate who has been vocally opposed the constitutional change. University students who joined in the protests were taken to local hospitals with various injuries. Journalists were assaulted and equipment was damaged. Downtown Asunción was looted. These recent actions by Latin American governments are certainly anti-democratic and anti-constitutional.

More importantly, these violent and deadly events in Paraguay, like its parliamentary coup of 2012, have begun to spread to other nations in the region.  On April 6, 2017, the first death in Venezuela at the hands of the police towards rioters was documented by journalists.

Bridget María Chesterton

Associate Professor of History

Buffalo State

Postcards and Blogs from Paraguay

In the middle of the twentieth century, the self-taught German-Paraguayan photographer, Klaus Henning, pointed his camera around Paraguay’s capital city of Asunción and the surrounding countryside, capturing the country at its best. To make a living, he sold his now classic images in the then familiar form of picture postcards. These pictures made their way around the world and spread the beauty of Paraguay’s people, buildings, and landscapes to those who may have never seen (or even heard of) Paraguay before. His images are some of the first color pictures of Paraguay that traveled via airmail around the world. Sent home by tourists, missionaries, businesspeople, and foreign journalists, Henning’s postcards were among the first modern blogs about Paraguay. They contained images of Paraguay on the front with words written by Paraguay’s sojourners on the back.

POSTCARD BY KLAUS HENNING. IMAGE USED WITH PERMISSION OF THE FAMILY.

POSTCARD BY KLAUS HENNING. IMAGE USED WITH PERMISSION OF THE FAMILY.

Paraguay has changed dramatically since the days of Klaus Henning’s photographs. But there are still photographers – digital ones these days – capturing Paraguay’s charming life and vistas. One of them is my dear friend Ana Silke Vera-Schmidt. Ana does not live in Asunción, as did Henning; rather, she lives in the vast wilderness of the Paraguayan Chaco, where she and her husband make their living managing a ranch located 70 kilometers from Filadelfia. Ana has been posting her photos of the ranch and the wilderness that surrounds her home for a few years on Facebook. She captures a part of Paraguay seen by few people on this planet. These images of exotic animals, quiet vistas, and vast landscapes have been filling my Facebook feed for years. I always enjoy them. Today, ParaguayAcademics.org shares her photos with a broader audience. Her images serve as the front of a modern postcard.

PHOTO BY ANA SIKLE VERA-SCHMIDT. WORKERS ON RANCH IN THE PARAGUAYAN CHACO. USED WITH PERMISSION.

PHOTO BY ANA SILKE VERA-SCHMIDT. COW WITH WILDLIFE, PARAGUAYAN CHACO. USED WITH PERMISSION.

 

PHOTO BY ANA SILKE VERA-SCHMIDT. TAGUA ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD, PARAGUAYAN CHACO. USED WITH PERMISSION.

Today’s “postcard writers” about and from Paraguay are friends and colleagues. They are those who obsess about Paraguay daily; who write about it often, but find few places to share their thoughts, ideas, research, and observations. This blog affords them (and me) this rare, and perhaps poignant, opportunity. In the near future we hope to have articles about yerba mate (Paraguayan green tea), work among indigenous communities, politics, zika, and fútbol to name just a few. I know that the potential topics and ideas are sure to fill the blog on topics I never imagined.   This collaborative blog will serve as the “address side” of the iconic picture postcard.

I hope that these new electronic “postcards from Paraguay” will become a place for those of us who study the country to share our thoughts and ideas with a broader audience. This blog will not be publishing on a schedule of any kind; we will post when articles are ripe. If you are interested in participating in the blog, please see the contact page and send us an idea.

 

Thanks so much.

Bridget María Chesterton

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

P.S. Knopfler won’t be sending postcards from Paraguay, but we will.