Territory, intersectionality, and class composition: ‘Neighbouring migrants’ in Buenos Aires Nick Clare PhD Thesis Department of Geography July 2015 For Martin who sha’n’t get to read this. “The snobbish character of the night life…the generous flow of champagne in night clubs and the brilliance of…Buenos Aires's cosmopolitan ambience provoke exclamations by foreigners that it is the Paris of South America. Little consolation for the working classes, who drag out their lives between sweatshop and hovel.” Raúl Prebisch “[T]he economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.” Frantz Fanon Acknowledgements I must first thank Professors Jean Grugel and Charles Pattie for their patience and effort with me and this thesis – without their critical comments and support both it and I would be all the more shambolic. The encouragement, advice, and intellectual probing of Drs. Deborah Sporton, Pat Noxolo, Paula Meth, Glyn Williams, Tariq Jazeel, and Jess Dubow have also been invaluable, as were the comments from my examiners Professor Ronnie Munck and Dr Eric Olund. None of this would have been possible without the whole host of wonderful people I met in Argentina. There are too many to name, but particular thanks must go to Vicky, Liz, Jerónimo, Juan, Ariel, and Johanna for their friendship and help with the research. My time in Buenos Aires would also have been nowhere near as rewarding without Gaby (and Luciano), José, Henk, Nico, Dara, and Becky. I am forever indebted to all the members of Simbiosis Cultural and La Alameda for not only their engagement with me and my research, but also their dedication and struggles. I must also thank all of those people who participated – directly and indirectly – in my research, many of whom gave me far too much of their time. The fieldwork for this thesis was supported by the Society for Latin American Studies, The Slawson Award, Sheffield Institute for International Development, and a Santander Mobilities Award. Without this financial help, my research would have been much more rushed and superficial, and so I am extremely grateful. To everyone in the D5 office: thank you for making it a nice second home. And although this thesis has been, at times, a torturous process, I cannot begin to imagine what it would have been like without you all. Special thanks, of course, have to go to my fellow moron-in-arms Will, but I am also phenomenally grateful to Marcia, Aisha, Azeezat, Beth, and Chloe for helping me to unlearn so much. Thanks also to Joe for his useful comments and provocations. Hold tight all my pals in Sheffield and beyond. You deserve great credit for dealing with my tedious ramblings and increasingly morose demeanour; I hope that things improve for you once this is finished. i Throughout every stage of this thesis I have been supported wonderfully by my family. So thank you, in particular, to Gummo for suggesting much of the musical accompaniment to the writing process, Roland for his work to painstakingly find all of the split infinitives, and Nicky for her unwavering emotional (and at times financial) support. Finally, Lizzie, I am unable to express how much you have helped me, so I just hope that you already know. ii Abstract In this thesis I explore the experiences of, and the attitudes towards, ‘neighbouring migrants’ – immigrants from Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay, as well as certain internal, Argentine migrants – in Buenos Aires. I argue that these experiences and attitudes are shaped by intersectional relationships of class, race (in particular whiteness), and national identity, yet are mediated by territorial identities – themselves constructed by various intersectional processes. The thesis also contrasts the consequences of contemporary flows of immigration with the waves of European immigration that were central to Argentina’s nation-building project, demonstrating the persistent power of these early migratory patterns. Drawing on a range of theories influenced by autonomist Marxism, anarchism, and feminism, the thesis demonstrates the importance of reengaging with ideas of class when considering immigrants’ everyday experiences and struggles, and relationships with social/labour movements. However, it argues that while understandings of class must be intersectional, intersectionality has to recognise the unique nature of the class relationship, and how this extends far beyond the workplace and processes of production. The thesis therefore adopts an ‘intersectional class struggle analysis’, which is combined with the autonomist Marxist idea of ‘class composition’ to explore both the difficulties and possibilities of ‘neighbouring migrants’’ political activity. In the thesis I also explore the importance of space and territory, arguing that Buenos Aires has seen a rise in ‘territorial subjectivities’. These territorial subjectivities are themselves constructed intersectionally, but can go on to normalise and obfuscate the processes that form them, and thus need unpacking. Through an engagement with radical conceptions of territory – themselves heavily influenced by contemporary Latin American struggles and social movements – the thesis demonstrates how territorial identities, subjectivities, and attachments can both help and hinder intersectional class struggles. Ultimately this thesis shows that territorial identities, subjectivities, and attitudes cannot be decoupled from intersectional class, and vice versa. iii iv Contents Acknowledgements i Abstract iii Contents v List of figures ix List of tables xi Abbreviations, acronyms, and glossary xiii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Locating the thesis 2 1.2 Research aims and questions 4 1.3 Thesis outline 6 CHAPTER 2 FRAMING THE THESIS: CLASS, INTERSECTIONALITY, AND TERRITORY 11 2.1 Migrants and class 12 2.2 Class and its discontents 13 2.2.1 Intersectionality, and class 18 2.3 Class, race, indigeneity, and national identity in Latin America 23 2.3.1 Race in Latin American and Argentina 26 2.3.2 Indigeneity 33 2.3.3 National identity 34 2.4 Class composition 36 2.4.1 Contemporary class composition 38 2.4.2 Towards an intersectional labour geography 40 2.5 Territory 41 2.5.1 A brief history of territory 42 2.5.2 The territorial (re)turn 44 2.5.3 Latin American territories 46 2.5.4 Territory, identity, and the ‘intersectional production of space’ 49 2.5.5 Territorialising In Place/Out of Place 51 2.6 Conclusions 52 CHAPTER 3 CONFRONTING PRIVILEGES AND LEARNING A CITY: CONSTRUCTING A 57 CRITICAL METHODOLOGY 3.1 Reflexive research design 57 3.1.1 From ‘radical research from below’ to ‘radical research from above’ 57 3.1.2 Fieldwork structure 62 3.2 Ethnography: a mixed qualitative methods approach 64 3.2.1 Interviews 65 v 3.2.2 Participant observation, observant participation, and autoethnography 68 3.2.3 ‘Learning the city’: mobile ethnographic methods 71 3.3 Analysis and writing 74 3.4 Ethics, consent, and limitations 77 3.5 Conclusions 79 CHAPTER 4 BUILDING A NATION AND A CITY: CLASS, RACE, AND IMMIGRATION 81 4.1 European immigration 82 4.2 Internal migration 84 4.2.1 Peronism and internal migration 85 4.2.2 1955-1983: Peronism, anti-Peronism, and military dictatorships 87 4.2.3 Class, race, and national identity: explaining historical attitudes 88 towards migration 4.3 Regional and neighbouring migration 90 4.3.1 The ‘neighbouring migrant’ 94 4.3.2 Post-crisis changes 96 4.4 Contemporary immigration 99 4.4.1 Bolivian immigration 101 4.4.2 Paraguayan immigration 104 4.4.3 Peruvian immigration 105 4.4.4 Uruguayan immigration 106 4.5 Conclusions 107 CHAPTER 5 THE CHANGING FACES OF BUENOS AIRES 109 5.1 Buenos Aires in the 19th and 20th centuries 110 5.1.1 The ‘Paris of Latin America’ 110 5.1.2 The birth of the villas miserias 111 5.1.3 Military dictatorship and ‘slum clearance’ 114 5.2 Post-dictatorship: neoliberalism, fragmentation, and territorial 116 subjectivities 5.2.1 Territorial subjectivities 121 5.3 2001 crisis, ‘recovery’, and the present day 124 5.3.1 ‘Recovery’ 125 5.3.2 Present day 127 5.4 Conclusions 131 CHAPTER 6 CLASS, RACE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY: UNPACKING 133 INTERSECTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS 6.1 Does class count? 134 6.2 Class and intersectionality 137 6.2.1 Class and race: the power of whiteness 138 6.2.2 Class and national identity: Peronism and the national popular 142 6.2.3 The middle classes and porteñidad 148 6.3 Class composition and stereotypes 155 vi 6.3.1 The role of migrant types 156 6.3.2 Stereotypes and class differences within migrant groups 160 6.3.3 Slave labour? 166 6.4 Conclusions 170 CHAPTER 7 TERRITORIAL POLITICS AND IDENTITIES: BARRIOS, VECINOS, AND THE 171 CONURBANO 7.1 Neighbourhoods and territorial identity 171 7.1.1 The striated city: gentrification and ghettoisation 171 7.1.2 The barrio as a multiterritory 177 7.2 The changing face of the vecino 187 7.2.1 Vecinocracia 189 7.3 The conurbano 196 7.3.1 Relationality and liminal barrios 197 7.3.2 Territorial recomposition 204 7.4 Conclusions 209 CHAPTER 8 ‘UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION’ OR ‘UNCONTROLLED 213 XENOPHOBIA’? RESPONSES TO THE OCCUPATION OF THE PARQUE INDOAMERICANO 8.1 Background to the occupation 214 8.2 The occupation 219 8.3 Responses to the occupation 225 8.3.1 ‘Uncontrolled immigration’ 225 8.3.2 Vecinos against okupas 229 8.4 Spatialities of the occupation 232 8.4.1 Indoamericano as ‘public space’: discourses of emptiness and control 233 8.4.2 Territorial hierarchies 240 8.5 Consequences of the occupation 245 8.6 Conclusions 247 CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSIONS 249 9.1 Recapping the thesis: empirical findings 249 9.1.1 Intersectionality and immigrant (class) struggles 249 9.1.2 Territorial politics, identities, and subjectivities 252 9.1.3 Indoamericano: causes, consequences, and conclusions 254 9.2 Research implications 255 9.2.1 Migrants not migration 255 9.2.2 Reanimating class analysis 257 9.2.3 In-against-and-beyond the territorial (re)turn 258 9.2.4 Methodological innovations 260 9.3 Avenues for future research 261 9.4 Coda 263 vii Appendix References 267 viii List of figures Figure 4.1: Population born in non-neighbouring and neighbouring 93 countries between 1869 and 2010.