Argentina and the Southern Cone. Neoliberalism and national imaginations

ALEJANDRO GRIMSON; GABRIEL KESSLER

Routledge

Lugar: Nueva York; Año: 2005 p. 221

0-415-94763-4

Generally, we examine sociocultural transformations taking place in Argentina during the 1990s and up to the present time, as well as the regional repercussions of these transformations. After depicting the different ways territory, state, and society have been conceptualized over the course of Argentine history, we analyze in the first chapter the relations between Argentina and its neighbors in recent years,  as well as the Mercosur project and changes occurring along the borders in member countries. Specifically, we examine the way in which certain characteristics of the welfare state interacted with a long-standing strategic scenario positing war between Argentina and Brazil or Chile in the mid-twentieth century and then contrast that with regional integration under the neoliberal era that followed. In the second chapter we analyze the structural changes taking place during the 1990s—both the transformations in state and economy and the construction of a narrative legitimizing neoliberalism. We contrast these changes with what took place in Uruguay and Chile during the same period of time. In the third chapter we cover the social impact of the reforms analyzed in the preceding chapter. Concretely, we focus on five social sectors: the traditionally poor, the impoverished middle class, the unemployed, the winners, and young people who combine work with petty crime to survive. At the end of the chapter we make a comparison with events in Uruguay and Chile, which sheds further light on the case of Argentina. In the fourth chapter we cover the changing role of ethnicity in Argentina. We examine alterations brought about by neoliberal policies in the workplace in the context of a development project and link that to the meaning ascribed by Argentines to immigrants from border and nonborder countries. In addition, we update the view of Argentina as a European enclave with first world status in a continent populated by native people, mestizos, and Afro-descendants. We then contrast that with the contemporary diversity politics developed by subordinate groups on one hand and international agencies on the other. In the fifth chapter we describe the social and collective responses to the new economic, scale, and political situation arising during the 1990s: the barter phenomenon, road blocking by piqueteros, common meal centers, and failed businesses, seized and reopened by workers, among other responses. In the course of this chapter it becomes clear that the belief that neoliberal reform was passively accepted in Argentina is as shortsighted as the view of a “red Argentina” where the neoliberal consensus turned into a massive struggle against globalization in the blink of an eye. We close with a discussion of the theoretical and political relevance of the Argentine case for analyzing the consequences and errors of neoliberalism.