Auyero 2006

“The Moral Politics of Argentine Crowds” Javier Auyero, 147-162

in

in Johnston, Hank, and Paul Almeida, eds. 2006. Latin American social movements: globalization, democratization, and transnational networks. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield.

• Introduction
• Argentina has seen the rise of new and unconventional forms of popular contention: sieges of public buildings, barricades on roads, camps on central plazas, rallies (including those in from of supermarkets demanding food) (148)
• these represent a rupture with traditional political practices (ie clientelism) and a novel form of popular politics (Dinerstein 2001) (148)
• Argument:
• popular grievances in two cases came from divergent moral politics
• these politics are rooted in different political traditions (patronage versus populist welfare)
• and these moral politics influence the types of protests and crowd behavior
• El Estallido: Santiago
• protesters attack government buildings and homes of politicians (150-151)
• precision by which the crowd moved from one home to another shows how the city’s geography was well known, and how the sources of corruption and suffering were centralized in rich neighborhoods (151)
• routine (patronage) politics played a part, since the protesters knew where everyone lived because they had been their for patronage parties! (152)
• protest-as-carnaval
• “For once Santiago was ours”
• protesters enjoyed themselves, thought the protest was fun (153-154)
• La Pueblada and Los Piqueteros: Cutral-co
• announcement that area did not get contract for fertilizer plant (154-155)
• radio sends news, calls for people to start demonstrating
• former mayor behind much of this, since he was in a political battle with current administration (155)
• first day the politicians secretly organized everything, but protesters eventually began ignoring the politicians (157)
• protesters define themselves as el pueblo (158), protesting to protect/demand the return of their past experience under a semi-welfare state (which had been buttressed by local oil money, which decreased when company was privatized) (159)
• The Moral Politics of the Crowds
• in each case there were different moral politics that defined what was legitimate protest and what wasn’t (159)
• In Santiago, (160)
• the clientelist networks defined the itinerary
• “honest” protesters were fighting “dishonest”/corrupt politicians
• corrupt should be punished directly
• In Cutral-co (160)
• party politics, not just clientelism, involved in the origins of the pueblada
• protesters placed emphasis on citizenship, visibility, demand to be heard in a time whose existence was threatened
• stayed on the road to be recognized, not ignored (161)