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The Unemployed in Movement: Struggles for a Common Territory in the Buenos Aires Urban Periphery

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The Unemployed in Movement: Struggles for a Common Territory in the Buenos Aires Urban Periphery View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository THE UNEMPLOYED IN MOVEMENT: STRUGGLES FOR A COMMON TERRITORY IN THE BUENOS AIRES URBAN PERIPHERY Liz Mason-Deese A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Geography. Chapel Hill 2015 Approved by: Altha Cravey Arturo Escobar Banu Gokariskel Michael Hardt Alvaro Reyes © 2015 Liz Mason-Deese ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Liz Mason-Deese: The Unemployed in Movement: Struggles for a Common Territory in the Buenos Aires Urban Periphery (Under the direction of Altha Cravey) In 2001, after years of increasing unemployment and neoliberal austerity measures, a massive uprising shook the streets of Buenos Aires and forced the neoliberal government out of office. The movements that led and emerged from this insurrection were notable for the new form of politics that they practiced: aiming not to take the power of the state but to create counter-power from below. This dissertation analyzes the experiences of one of the key social movements during this period: the unemployed workers' movements. Never a nationally unified movement, autonomous organizations of unemployed workers emerged throughout the country, conducting massive roadblocks to demand unemployment benefits and creating their own forms of “work with dignity.” Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork along with the rich theoretical production of the movements themselves, the dissertation focuses on two such organizations in the urban periphery of Buenos Aires. The dissertation shows how the unemployed workers' organizations expand the definition of labor in order to recognize crucial reproductive labor and other forms of femininized labor that are often marginalized, highlighting the productivity of the poor and the unemployed. This has crucial implications for understanding the contemporary capitalist economy, especially in its neo-extractivist form currently dominant in Latin America and the continued prevalence of iii precarious and informal labor. In order to organize around this expanded notion of labor, the unemployed workers' movements engage in “territorial organizing,” in which each organizations works in a specific neighborhood or territory, drawing its membership primarily from that geographic space, addressing the most pressing needs of its residents, and establishing a physical presence there. The unemployed workers' organizations enacted alternative economic practices in their territories, such as worker-controlled cooperatives and other enterprises, as well as autonomous forms of social reproduction, such as schools and health clinics. These alternative practices allowed the poor and unemployed to survive the worst of Argentina's economic crisis, while laying the foundations for an alternative society. Ultimately, this dissertation shows how the unemployed workers' movements center their practices around collectively producing and controlling the common and creating new forms of life. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Nada de lo que yo tengo; nada de lo que soy; ni nada de lo que pienso es mío. In many ways, it feels wrong to list myself as the sole author of this work: not only the ideas and the words, but the very motivation and energy to write this dissertation would not have been possible without the love and support of so many others. This dissertation can be thought of as the result of a common: of knowledge and thought, as well as of affect and care. The following only begins to name all of those who contributed to this work. I am most deeply indebted to many compañerxs in Argentina. The ideas in this dissertation were forged in struggle, the result of many movements' hard work and sacrifices: I offer all of them my most profound gratitude. In La Matanza, to Carlitos, Graciela, Vilma, Naty, Marte and everyone else at Yo Sí Puedo, for the many years of friendship and trust, and all the nights of dancing and amazing asados. To Alberto Spagñolo, Neka, Maba, Jorge Jara, and the rest of the Jara clan, for showing me that other ways of life are possible and that kindness can be revolutionary. Diego Sztulwark and Verónica Gago and the rest of Colectivo Situaciones for their friendship, intellectual guidance, and model of political inquiry. Marta López and Cecilia García for welcoming me into their home and family, for all of the baked goods and late night conversations. Sebastián Touza and Cecilia Pereyra for a beautiful Christmas. Maura Brighenti for always pushing me to think harder and for all the shared vinitos. Magalí Rabasa, Meg Krausch, and Cyrus Pireh for their support during fieldwork and the many shared fernet and cokes. Andrés Bracony for being my “book dealer.” Margarita Marcos for teaching me about the v possibilities of happiness. I am also extremely grateful for many transnational and translocal networks and friendships from which I have learned so much: Anna Curcio and Gigi Roggero and the rest of the Edu-Factory Collective; Sandro Mezzadra; Manuela Zechner, Bue Rubner Hansen, Mara Ferreri and the rest of the Counter-Mapping Queen Mary Collective; Luis Moreno-Caballud and Begonia Santa-Cecilia and others in the Making Worlds Collective in New York; and, Ana Méndez de Andés and everyone else at Traficantes de Sueños. Silvia Federici and Raquel Gutiérrez once talked me out of quitting and continue to inspire me. I am extremely lucky to have friends in Chapel Hill who have mentored and supported me since my first days as an undergraduate activist and who continued to be a lifeline during the writing of this dissertation: Diane Nelson, Mark Driscoll, Howie Machtinger, Trude Bennett, Elyse Crystall, and Karen Booth. This dissertation would not have been started and much less finished without their support; their unfaltering confidence in me, especially when I did not have any in myself, has meant the world to me. To Marjorie Scheer who has accompanied me on so many journeys over the past decade I offer my most profound thanks. My comrades from the Counter Cartographies Collective – Maribel Casas-Cortes, Sebastian Cobarrubias, Craig Dalton (and Cecilia Durbin), Tu Lan, Tim Stallmann, and Nathan Swanson – have shown me that research militancy is indeed based on love and friendship. Gabriel, Samari, and Zoilo Cobarrubias-Casas continue to bring an incredible amount of joy to my life, if I was able to maintain any semblance of sanity while writing, it was because of them. And a special thanks to Tim for keeping me well-supplied with bread and cakes, and for providing snacks for my defense. I would like to thank my committee for all their support through the many years of the vi Ph.D. program (and some for even longer than that). I would especially like to thank my advisor Altha Cravey, for all of her assistance and her tireless commitment to fighting for social justice. And Arturo Escobar, who has known me the longest of all my committee members and yet somehow still never tires of drinking Malbec with me. My other committee members Michael Hardt, Banu Gokariskel, and Alvaro Reyes were also extremely helpful from the first formulations of this project until its conclusion. I am extremely grateful for having been able to work with such wonderful people, who, each in their own way, embody a way of researching and writing otherwise and inhabiting the university differently. I would also like to thank a number of other friends who supported me as I was writing: Michal Osterweil, Diana Gómez, Yousuf Al-Bulushi, Kate Shields, Eli Meyerhoff, Jecca Nammakal, Ben Trott, and Donna Stanley as well as many of those listed earlier. Chase Foster and Ignacio Adriasola's support from afar was much appreciated. Meg Krausch's constant virtual (and sometimes IRL) accompaniment has been crucial throughout this project; Cryus Pireh's editing assistance was essential in getting it finished. Michal Osterweil, Vinci Daro, Dana Powell (and others from the Social Movements Working Group), and Marina Sitrin were essential in getting this project started. I am thankful for the financial support from the Inter-American Foundation Grassroots Development Fellowship, the National Science Foundation's Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award, and the UNC-CH Institute for the Study of the Americas' Tinker Field Research Grant and Mellon Conference Travel Award. And finally, I would like to thank my family: Lucinda Mason, William Deese, and Will Mason-Deese, for all their material and emotional support and my “extended family” Candace Wall, Alan Esker, and Stella for making sure I graduated from Hogwarts. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS........................................................................................................xii Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................1 The Insurrection of December 2001...........................................................................................1 Unemployed Workers' Movements.............................................................................................4 Origins of Project........................................................................................................................8 Methods and Knowledge Production........................................................................................12 Three Moments in Argentinean
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