Entre ciel et terre : les sciences sociales et la mobilisation populaire en Argentine

Abstract

The transformations undergone by Argentine society during nearly 30 years have entirely changed the identity of the popular classes in a society which had the most successful social integration policy in America. The expression «working class» serves no more than as a name for popular classes which today structure their identity, to advantage, through their «territorial inscription», and their political rapport only through employment and the protections of the state or the unions. We observe the deployment of a new repertoire in the methods of collective action characteristic of popular mobilisation: road blocks, popular revolts in the countryside, illegal occupation of urban territory, looting of shops, participation in the organisation of social programmes. At the same time, this new repertoire articulates itself with a 180 degree reorientation of public politics and the attitude of the state. The author proposes keys to interpreting these new forms of mobilisation, at the same time as offering a critical assessment of the social sciences in Argentina which proved to be practically incapable of understanding the return on the scene of losers of liberal modernisation.

Keywords

• Argentine
• lower class
• neoliberalism
• public politics
• collective actions
• social sciences