Marcelo Bórmida as seen through his publications in the journal Runa

Abstract

Founded in 1948 and at least untilthe 1980s, Runa was an expression of the directors of the Ethnographic Museum. Thereforet heir discussions revolved around diffusionism, Americanism and later phenomenology. Althought hese theories were not the only thing that was reflected in Runa, I do believe they present a central axis during the first three decades of its circulation. In this article I intend to develop, based on the work of José Imbelloni, Marcelo Bórmida and his followers, this course. Runa developed at that time an antinomy that we could call “authoritariandiversity”: itis clear that only what the director of the review wanted to be published was published. But this arbitrary position also made Runa have a clear line. If one wanted to know what was the vision of Americanistics from diffusionism, one could refer to Runa. The same later regarding phenomenology. How to balance an editorial line that has personality but at the same time is democratic, participatory and according to the current levels of academic and scientific demand is probably one of the future challenges of reviews like Runa