The Music Band integrated by the »minors« who studied at the Arts and Crafts School (Uruguay, 1878-1887).

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to share the analysis of the discursive formation about the minors who studied at the School of Arts and Crafts, in particular, about the students who integrated the Music Band, and at some point, connected with the field of the arts. It seeks to reveal and characterize different documentary pieces in which constructions of meaning are appreciated around the ways of naming the students who configured social-corporal otherness(es).
In the legal discourse analysis, relationships are identified on the ways of referring to students: between 12 and 16 years old, male, «in process of correction», orphans, «deaf-mute», «convicted» by a judge, residents of Montevideo and the interior of the country, Uruguayans and other nationalities of the region, and generally poor.
For the treatment of the object we use a certain affectation of discourse analysis and archaeology, analyzing primary sources and newspapers of the time. The axis that supports the research is the genealogical analysis that starts from the concepts of governmentality and biopolitics.
On one hand, we highlight the confinement mechanisms in Uruguayan industrial education as the fissures and vanishing points to such a claim. The form of government in Uruguay during this period involved the organization of the State in terms of policies on the body.
The teaching of music with distinguished teachers and the participation of the musical band in various exhibitions gave prestige to the School of Arts and Crafts in the Río de la Plata.