“We Are Clients of the Earth: Value Creation and the Production of Space among Bolivian Migrants in Buenos Aires” A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at George Mason University By Charles R. Dolph Bachelor of Arts Kenyon College, 2002 Director: Linda J. Seligmann, Professor Department of Anthropology Spring Semester 2011 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Copyright © 2011 by Charles R. Dolph All Rights Reserved ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank some people for helping me in many direct and indirect ways over the course of this project. When I began taking graduate courses at Case Western Reserve University now more than three years ago, Janet McGrath and her small class of doctoral students welcomed me as if I were one of them, despite my not being in the program there. The members of my thesis committee while a Masters student at George Mason University have been instrumental in helping me see this project to fruition. Linda Seligmann allowed me a great deal of intellectual and practical latitude to undertake this project, and kept me in line when I needed it. Her help and guidance have given much needed theoretical shape and ethnographic grounding to my sometimes fanciful notions. David Haines, likewise, consistently provided me with positive encouragement and helpful feedback. Because of his metacomments to me, I will surely write shorter sentences from now on. Maria Lagos, despite being retired, busy, and far away in La Paz, Bolivia, took on the responsibility of being on my thesis committee, lending invaluable insight and comments at various stages. Danylo Kosovych provided much needed friendship and conversation while we were Masters students, and graciously took the time to review a final draft of my thesis. The writing phase of my thesis would have been overwhelming if not for Ozden Ocak, who continues to listen to me work out what I am trying to say. I am most grateful to her for being able to talk about the project of life. Lastly, I thank my friends scattered between rural Bolivia and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The generosity they have shown me over the better part of the last decade is amazing, and I owe my fieldwork to them. iii Table of Contents Page List of Tables…………………………………………………………………….vii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………...viii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………...ix 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………….........1 Circulating representations: Pachamama and the nation………………………....1 Some issues shaping the research………………………………………………...6 Value creation and the social construction of space and time………………...6 Neoliberalism: Urbanization and the state……………………….....................9 Ethnographic orientation and context………………………………………...12 Methods……………………………………………………………………….....15 Outline of the Chapters..........................................................................................18 2. Land, labor, capital: Fictitious commodities, urbanization, and the state……......20 Introduction: Capitalist value creation – land, labor, and capital………………..20 Contemporary movements and transactional orders……………………………..23 Types of movement……………………………………………………………....26 Back and forth movements: Jorge’s story………………………………….....27 Long-term migration: David’s story……………………………………….....28 Circuit migration: Nicolas’s story………………………………………….....30 Return to Bolivia: Martín’s story……………………………………………..31 Bolivian migrants and neoliberal hegemony in Buenos Aires: Dictatorship and democracy………………………………………………………………………..32 Urbanization of Buenos Aires: Federalization to neoliberalism……………...33 Transforming Buenos Aires: Dictatorship and eradicating the villas………...35 Land, labor, and capital: Neoliberal urbanization in Argentina……………....37 Neoliberal hegemony and abstract space………………..................................41 Renewing neoliberal hegemony: Argentina’s 2001-2003 crisis……………...43 Moving between the poles: Franco’s story……………………………………....45 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………....50 3. The obra: Phases of construction, organization on-site, rhythms of work……....52 Introduction: Construction boom in the Federal Capital………………………...52 The labor process: Actions and subjectivity……………………………………..53 Phases of construction and organization of the obra………………………….....55 Spatiotemporal orientations of the work………………………………………....64 4. Double vision: Plans, actions, and games in the labor process…………………..68 Introduction: Agency as outcome………………………………………………..68 The circulation of materials and human-machine interactions, or, feeding iv and consumption………………………………………………………………...70 Circulating materials, coordinating action…………………………………...70 Rhythms of work…………………………………………………………….72 Material semiotics: Feeding and consumption………………………………76 Plans, actions, and games……………………………………………………..80 Taylorism and the separation of mental and manual labor…………………..80 Plans and situated actions……………………………………………………81 Feeding and consumption revisited: Capitalist metabolism, scales, and games……………………………………………………………………86 Double vision………………………………………………………………...88 Feeding and consumption as generative of camaraderie and conflict on- site……………………………………………………………………………….89 The asado……………………………………………………………………89 Conflicts over time and consumption: The idiom of nationality……………93 Alienation: From product and process?................................................................96 Alienation as a relation of property………………………………………….96 Mediating alienation………………………………………………………....99 5. “Working through” class, race, and nation: Consent, alienation, and social reproduction…………………………………………………………………….101 Introduction: A resurgence of organized labor?..................................................101 “Working through” class, race, and nationality in Argentina…………………..103 Time and the workday: Informality, wages, and embeddedness……………….106 Informal practices: Vertical and horizontal………………………………...106 Wages as manipulated representations of time……………………………..109 Embeddedness and alternative modes of exchange on-site………………...112 Textures of class: UOCRA and racialized nationality Nationalism and the asado………………………………………………….115 “Hey, if you don’t like it, pack your bags and off to Bolivia”: Nationality and exploitation……………………………………………………………..118 Securing consent: The chain, the wheel, and the circle………………………..121 Alienation, consent, and social reproduction…………………………………..123 6. “We are clients of the Earth”: Work, money, and the nation-state in the Virgen de Urkupiña…………………………………………………………………….127 Introduction: “You have to work here”………………………………………...127 Transactional orders: Synecdoche and the elasticity of scale……………….128 Migration, reciprocity, and festival sponsorship………………………………..130 Social totalities and reciprocity……………………………………………...130 “It’s as if the virgin sends you people to help with the festival”: The burden of sponsorship………………………………………………………131 Urkupiña: Conflicting meanings and modes of ritual…………………………..133 Andean ritual and social transformation…………………………………….133 Conflicting meanings and modes of ritual…………………………………..135 Work and the “migrant virgin”……………………………………………...136 Urkupiña in Ciudad Oculta: Exchange within circulation……………………...137 v Value, action, representation: The Devil and Pachamama……………………..142 “We are clients of the Earth”: Wage labor and Pachamama…………………...143 Value transformation and orders of spacetime: Pachamama and nation-states..145 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………..148 7. Conclusions……………………………………………………………………..150 The labor process……………………………………………………………….151 Neoliberal hegemony: Urbanization and the state in Argentina………………..152 Social totalities: Value creation and the construction of space and time……….153 Appendix A: Construction activity in Buenos Aires, 1990 – 2009…………….......157 Appendix B: Glossary……………………………………………………………....158 Notes………………………………………………………………………………..162 References…………………………………………………………………………..177 vi List of Tables Table Page 2.1 – Quantity of families, persons, and Bolivian families in the villas of Buenos Aires Federal Capital, 1966 – 1980…………………………………..36 vii List of Figures Figure Page 1.1 The two Virgen de Urkupiña figures in circulation during the celebration…….4 3.1 Organizational structure of Caballito One..........................................................58 3.2 Cement truck arrives for the hormigonada, Núñez site………………………..62 3.3 Truck pumps the hormigón…………………………………………………….62 3.4 Hormigón is pumped to the fifth floor………………………………………....62 3.5 Caballito One, in bricklaying phase……………………………………………63 3.6 Caballito Two, construction almost finished…………………………………..63 3.7 Laying the tiling on the sidewalk outside Caballito Two……………………...64 3.8 Plumbing installations; part of the “complex of mobilities” on-site…………..66 4.1 The noria, main artery of circulating materials………………………………..71 4.2 Buckets of mix riding up the noria…………………………………………….73 4.3 New and old cement mixers…………………………………………………...75 4.4 Buckets of mix waiting to go up the noria…………………………………….78 4.5 Faja for the floor……………………………………………………………….84 4.6 Faja for the wall………………………………………………………………..84 4.7, 4.8 Barbecue pits at Caballito One and Caballito Two………………………...91 4.9 The management bans alcohol consumption…………………………………..94 6.1 The sponsors bring out the virgins on the day of the festival…………………138 6.2 The caporales dance group performs on the cancha…………………………..138 6.3 The virgins on the day of the festival………………………………………….139 6.4 Arches for the Virgen de Urkupiña……………………………………………140 6.5 Ricardo offering a ch’alla to the virgins………………………………………140