The changing limits between the political and the social: ethnographic contributions to the debate about “el 2001” in Argentina

Abstract

In Argentina, disciplinary conceptions of politics have been challenged by “el 2001”. The ethnographies about processes of statalization of neighborhoods written in these years may be understood as an answer to this challenge. Specially, ethnographic research has discussed the normative assumptions tacitly introduced in certain dichotomies: social movements / patronage, autonomy / cooptation, resistance / subordination, new / old, project / urgency. These ethnographies usually focus on the events experienced by the researcher, concentrating on present times. When read comparatively, however, they seem to evocate a certain order among differences which I pretend to understand from a historical outlook. More precisely, I am interested in further developing our comprehension of “el 2001” according to the experiences of politics of the people described in these ethnographies. As a privileged point to elaborate the comparison, I analyze how different people define their practices connecting “work”, “neighborhood” and “politics”.