Many contemporary Argentines hold their “English Schools” in high regard.  These private institutions are seen as the epitome of global education and are sought after by cultural and economic elites.  As you might imagine, it wasn’t always so.  Most of these schools emerged under British “informal imperialism” during the late-nineteenth century; others were linked to smaller, and earlier, settlers from the United Kingdom.  As a result, such schools have negotiated different periods of political unrest and anti-British sentiment to ensure their survival and flourishing. These “English” schools have offered students educational excellence and global connections; but they have also been involved in the segregation of Argentina’s education system at all levels.  This paper explores the exceptional history of the oldest of these institutions, the Caledonian School, by tracing the different sites on which it has stood and regarding them as places of social history.

The presentation uses historical and ethnographic photos to show how the schools’ different sites, and subsequent moves, ensured its survival during different changing times.  The visual archaeology of these moves reveals a history of Argentine social relations.  Across a century and a half, this Kirk school to the south of Buenos Aires moved closer to central British railway hubs and then onwards to leafy northern suburbs beyond the rabble.  Such relocation, it is argued, exposes class mobility as being as much about ensuring social positions as moving between them. Drawing on the developing theory and method on “social aesthetics”, the Caledonian School’s migration is revealed as unwitting and witting movements toward eliteness during different periods of globalisation.