The construction of conflict: global interpretations in local perspective

GARZÓN ROGÉ, MARIANA

Jaipur

Workshop; Cultural Studies Workshop: Empire, Nation, Cosmopolitanism; 2011

Centre for Studies in Social Sciences - SEPHIS

Peronism is one of the most studied phenomena in the social sciences and history in Argentina. Its origins are usually located in 1945, when a sector of society accompanied Juan D. Perón in his political career to the presidency and another sector fought against him as if he were the rebirth of fascism in the national level. At that moment, Argentina was under a military regimen that had come to power through a coup in 1943. The government held a policy of neutrality in World War II, it limited trade union and political activity and it initiated important transformations in the world of workers thanks to the presence of Perón. In 1945, the definition of war forced the regime to take side with the allies and to plan a democratic solution for the situation. The account of events is thoroughly known in Argentina, especially in the metropolitan area. There, the support for the regime was particularly taken by workers benefited from government policy. The opposition to military government met most of the traditional political parties that identify the government with the authoritarian regimes which had recently fallen in Europe. According to current interpretations, political scene was divided into two fields: those workers interested in supporting the material benefits they have obtained from Perón and those opponents who faced the regimen under the dichotomy "democracy-dictatorship". This paper intends to tackle the specific political dynamics, the methods of street action and local political meanings which were activated in 1945 on a smaller scenario: the city of Mendoza. Through the change of scale it can be observed that while significants "dictatorship", "democracy", "fascism", "anti-fascism", "freedom", "authoritarirism", etc., were similar to those used in the international and national context, in local spaces they were issues of disputes and different appropriations. Through this kind of approach, practices and political senses are configured and reconfigured in people´s daily life experiences, in the micro areas. Although Western categories of political science seem fertile to analyze local context (because actors themselves used them), an empirical approach of historical processes often reveals that those notions produce the effect to hide the burden of experience in the construction of identity. Form other point of view, actors do not take position on pre-existing political identities, but they construct their identities. In that construction, political forms are learned through trial and error, they are sediment of collective experiences that integrate global interpretations of their times but exceed them and modify them.