Of vague war and vague peace in Argentina′s desert, 1775–1880,

This article addresses the relationship between war and peace in the frontier of the La Plata region during the period between circa 1775 and 1880. Like other frontier spaces in Spanish-America during this period, the La Plata region constituted a type of open violent space, lacking distinct periods of war during an era of apparently continuous, war-like power relations. Under these circumstances, “post-war order” was an undefined idea. Instead, over decades “war” and “peace” co-existed under various forms of local political orders. These systems were contentious and contested, they were ambiguous, and they competed with other political endeavours, which were conceptualised in hegemonic terms, bringing state-centric ideas of political systems into the local arena. These orders shall be the focus of this analysis.