Abstract
This article examines one aspect of the debate surrounding the social characterisation of the Liguista movement in the province of Misiones, which emerged and developed from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Specifically, we aim to conduct a comparative analysis of the positions of social anthropologist Leopoldo Bartolomé and those of Francisco Ferrara regarding this issue, with the aim of demonstrating how, in light of the processes studied, Bartolomé dismantles the foundations of Ferrara’s proposal on the basis of systematic and methodologically rigorous ethnographic research. Building on this observation, we will argue two points: 1) that Bartolomé’s critique of Ferrara provides a powerful starting point for a critique of the figure of the ‘hyperreal peasant’, drawing inspiration from a famous article on the ‘hyperreal Indian’ by Alcida Ramos; and 2) that the analysis of this controversy provides us with insights into the terms of the refinement of the debate in the social sciences by seriously considering the problem of the attribution of evidence.