Rhizomes of Power in Argentina's Social Movements

317 Pages·2014·1.17 MB·English

by  Graciela G. Monteagudo

UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff MMaassssaacchhuusseettttss AAmmhheerrsstt
SScchhoollaarrWWoorrkkss@@UUMMaassss AAmmhheerrsstt
Open Access Dissertations
5-13-2011
PPoolliittiiccss bbyy OOtthheerr MMeeaannss:: RRhhiizzoommeess ooff PPoowweerr iinn AArrggeennttiinnaa''ss SSoocciiaall
MMoovveemmeennttss
Graciela G. Monteagudo
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations
Part of the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons
RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn
Monteagudo, Graciela G., "Politics by Other Means: Rhizomes of Power in Argentina's Social Movements"
(2011). Open Access Dissertations. 420.
https://doi.org/10.7275/2176806 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 ......................................................................................................... 179

IV, WOMEN'S LIVES IN THE RHIZOME: BRIDGING THE PUBLIC AND
THE PRIVATE ................................................................................................... 190

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 190

Global Exterminating Technologies .................................................................... 201

Beyond the Blooming Cycles of Protests: The Submerged Connections ........... 205

Networks of Resistance ....................................................................................... 211

Que no se Abolle la Olla, que no se Calle la Calle ............................................. 213

Me Gusta Cuando Callas ..................................................................................... 222

Gender and Repression at the Road Block .......................................................... 239

Performing Gender at the Meetings and Direct Actions ..................................... 250

Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 254

V. CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................. 271

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 271

Summary ............................................................................................................. 276

Theoretical Contributions .................................................................................... 281

Open Lines for Future Research .......................................................................... 284

Social and Political Significance of this Research .............................................. 286

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 289

ix