The social function of folklore: criticism, research and cultural politics during Pablo Garrido’s initial career (Chile, 1928-1944)

Abstract

According to several documents preserved in the Fondo Pablo Garrido –Research and Documentation Center, University of Chile–, we herein present a contextual analysis of the critique and research texts on folklore by Chilean musician and musicologist Pablo Garrido Vargas, and of the respective approaches and actions that he undertook in the cultural policies field, from the year 1928 –the beginning of his career as a journalist– to 1944 –when he joined the Dirección General de Información y Cultura, at the Chilean Ministry of Interior. This article tracks down the notion of “social function” that Garrido applied to musical folklore, for which we have approached his initial career as a music critic and cultural journalist, researcher and scholar, musician –composer and performer–, agent, union

leader, and sympathizer for the Frente Popular. It is of particular interest, in this sense, his conflicted relation with the musical establishment embodied by the Universidad de Chile –regarding which we propose a hypothesis about the upbringing of folklore under its wing–; a general outline of his political, social and aesthetic positions, and a brief exposition of the Afrocentrist thesis he devised on the origins of the Chilean cueca.