Civic and Ethnic Conceptions of Nationhood on the Peruvian-Chilean Frontier, 1880-1930

Using Hans Kohn's classic distinction between the Western, political, or civic model of nationalism, and the Eastern, genealogical, or ethnic model, this article analyses the process of nationalism during perhaps the most contentious border dispute in South American history: the Peruvian-Chilean frontier after the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). This article argues that while Kohn's modular dichotomy remains analytically useful in isolating the principles arbitrarily used by Chilean and Peruvian political elites in their official national projects, it underestimates the ways in which various sectors of local society responded to, rejected, or renegotiated these projects.