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Politics by Other Means: Rhizomes of Power in Argentina's Social Movements

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Politics by Other Means: Rhizomes of Power in Argentina's Social Movements University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 5-13-2011 Politics by Other Means: Rhizomes of Power in Argentina's Social Movements Graciela G. Monteagudo University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Monteagudo, Graciela G., "Politics by Other Means: Rhizomes of Power in Argentina's Social Movements" (2011). Open Access Dissertations. 420. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/420 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS: RHIZOMES OF POWER IN ARGENTINA’S SOCIAL MOVEMENTS A Dissertation Presented by GRACIELA MONTEAGUDO Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2011 Anthropology © Copyright by Graciela Monteagudo 2011 All Rights Reserved POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS: RHIZOMES OF POWER IN ARGENTINA’S SOCIAL MOVEMENTS A Dissertation Presented by GRACIELA MONTEAGUDO Approved as to style and content by: ______________________________________ Arthur Keene, Chair ______________________________________ Jacqueline Urla, Member ______________________________________ Ann Ferguson, Member ______________________________________ Millicent Thayer, Member ______________________________________ Sonia Alvarez, Member ______________________________________ Elizabeth Chilton, Chair Anthropology Department DEDICATION Para Jan, mi hijo, por su apoyo y paciencia ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank my Committee Members for their outstanding support. My gratitude goes as well to the Argentine academics that helped me with this dissertation (Graciela Di Marco, Mónica Tarducci, Vanesa Prieto, Andrés Ruggeri, Eduardo Glavich, Pablo Pozzi, and many others). I also want to thank my friends in Argentina (Flavio, Gabriela, Yuli, Patricio, and Walter), without whose support this dissertation would have never been written. Finally, my gratitude goes to all the activists who embodied politics by other means in Argentina. Thank you for opening your homes, your movements, your ideas and your hearts to me. v ABSTRACT POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS: RHIZOMES OF POWER IN ARGENTINA’S SOCIAL MOVEMENTS MAY 2011 GRACIELA MONTEAGUDO, B.A., UNIVERSIDAD DE BUENOS AIRES, FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS, DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOSOFÍA M.F.A., GODDARD COLLEGE Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Arthur Keene The focus of my research has been the reverberations of the 2001 Argentine economic crisis, as they affected and were responded to by women in social movements. This dissertation contributes to studies of globalization by highlighting the unintended consequences of neoliberalism in Argentina in the form of the collective empowerment of women in egalitarian social movements. The negative consequences of neoliberalism are well known, but I found that these policies produced more than misery. They also helped to stimulate a new kind of politics —a set of autonomous movements aimed at democratizing society as well as the state. In response to rapidly deteriorating living conditions, contemporary Argentine social movements organized their constituencies in what I have defined as the field of politics by other means. In the context of failed governmental programs and discourse designed to create docile, mobile subjects (governmentality), egalitarian social movements engaged in the creation of social movements whose democratic structures contrasted with the dispossessing nature of the neoliberal global power they confronted. In Argentina, this new political culture and methodology fostered, through street theater and pageants, 'other means' of making vi politics, including a concern for internal gender democracy in what has been called the “solidarity economy.” My research suggests that struggles against gender inequities have a synergistic relationship to democratic political structures. I found that receptivity to feminist discourses and opportunities for women’s participation were greater in anti- hierarchical opposition movements than in those with a more traditional leftist orientation. In these autonomous movements, women were able to challenge gender inequities, democratizing both the movements and their family relationships. Their struggle for democracy and freedom contrasts with the role of neoliberal policies and practices responsible for the weakening of democratic institutions in Argentina. In this way, my research not only broadens understanding of Argentina’s crisis and recovery, but it raises questions about the implications of the present worldwide economic and social crisis on struggles to transform gender relations. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................... v ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS: RHIZOMES OF POWER IN ARGENTINA'S SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ............................................................. 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Neoliberal Catastrophe ............................................................................................ 8 The “Human Mask” of the Catastrophe ................................................................ 12 Genealogy of Politics by Other Means ................................................................. 16 Femininity and Feminisms in the Rhizome ........................................................... 24 Untamed Direct Actions ........................................................................................ 30 Challenging Neoliberal Governmentality ............................................................. 32 Leftist Macho Hegemonic Masculinities and Leninism ....................................... 37 Highway Performances of Radical, Non-hegemonizing Political Femininities and Masculinities ........................................................................ 44 Methods and Personal Background ....................................................................... 48 Outline of the Dissertation .................................................................................... 51 II. NATIVE ANTHROPOLOGIST? ISSUES OF POWER IN THE GLOBAL FIELD .................................................................................................. 63 Who Gets to Know What ...................................................................................... 71 Who Gets to Design the Research Agenda and Tell the Story? ............................ 77 To PAR or not to PAR… ...................................................................................... 83 Friendship in the Field: Too Close for Comfort? .................................................. 88 III. CONTESTING NEOLIBERAL GOVERMENTALITY .................................... 106 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 106 Indigenous Definitions of Economic Solidarity .................................................. 113 Background ......................................................................................................... 116 The First Peronist Governmentality .................................................................... 118 Neoliberalism, Unemployment, and Poverty ...................................................... 120 Resistance to Neoliberalism ................................................................................ 121 The Constitution of Politics by Other Means ...................................................... 125 Landscapes of Power-over .................................................................................. 127 Politics by Other Means: Zapatismo, Unemployed Urban Workers, and Popular Assemblies ....................................................................................... 131 viii The Neoliberal Peronist Governmentality ........................................................... 134 Constitution of Subjects and Agency .................................................................. 141 New Subjectivities in the Economies of Solidarity ............................................. 144 Balloons for Social Change ................................................................................. 145 Bankruptcy and Fire ............................................................................................ 149 Contesting Governmentality through Economies of Solidarity: The Proyectos Productivos ................................................................................... 161 Politics of Affection ............................................................................................ 163 Impoverished Middle Class Women and the Solidarity Economy ..................... 170 The problems ....................................................................................................... 174 Conclusions ........................................................................................................
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