Marginados y postergados en la obra de Fernando Ortiz

Rarely dealt with in current social science is the relationship between personal documents of public figures and the knowledge of their work, contributions, and the context in which they had to live and develop that work. In this article, I present an illustration of such a relationship based on the life and opus of Fernando Ortiz Fernández (1881–1969). He completed important works on Cuban culture, trace evidence of which appears in his personal papers that are divided into specific segments: scientific, cultural promotion and improvement of the nation, as he would categorize them. Ortiz, trained as a lawyer but self-taught in social sciences, made important contributions to the study of ethnogenesis of Cuba, especially among marginalized population: the pre-Colombian indigenous populations, the Chinese, and the Afro-Cubans. Using Ortiz's personal funds located in archives in Cuba, Europe, and the United States, I offer this example of an Anthropology of the South that evidences Ortiz's participation in numerous scientific and cultural companies in the Ibero-American space and in others, during the first six decades of the 20th century. [Fernando Ortiz, anthropologies of the South, Cuban identity, marginalized populations, personal papers]