Poverty knowledge in Argentina 1956- 2006. Some outlines

GRONDONA, ANA

Congreso; 39th Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association; 2014

Social Science History Association

This paper summarizes the main findings of a research project that aimed to build a history of the problematizations around low income populations in Argentina between 1959 and 2004 by looking into the following diagnosis: marginality, informality, poverty and exclusion. We focused on the analysis of discourses produced by experts linked to public office. In this paper we also expose three of our hypothesis: 1) the history of poverty knowledge in Argentina from 1959-2004 tells the story of the switch from structural perspectives to microanalysis of the behavior of the poor ; 2) this story is not the result of pre-agreements or voluntary strategies, but of the contingent articulation of different elements; 3) peripheral countries such as Argentina show the relevance of a ?translation? and ?circulation? of discourses in the building of poverty knowledge. Also in this paper we briefly describe our epistemological and methodological approach to the study of poverty knowledge based on the Materlist Discourse Analysis perspective - and try to assess its heuristic value.