Dictatorship, workers and trade-unions in Argentina (1976-1983): notes for a research agenda

VICTORIA BASUALDO

Barcelona

Congreso; LASA Latin American Studies Association congress; 2018

LASA

The aim of this paper is to briefly review some of the main contributions on the 1976-1983 dictatorship in Argentina and its impacts on labor, as well as to outline a future research agenda. The analysis of the historiography will be organized chronologically, which allows us to analyze some of the connections with other political, economic, social and academic processes. It will distinguish three main sub-periods: the 1980s, marked by the transition to democracy in Argentina, the 1990s, a decade during which neoliberal reforms were applied with full strength, and the post 2001-crisis, a time of economic growth and complex transformation of the academic sphere. The text will examine approaches to two different complex and heterogeneous actors with complexities and tensions: on the one hand the working class, both in terms of its political and social role, as well as in its economic dimension as labor force; on the other hand the trade-union movement, as the institutional organizations supposed to represent labor interests. In dialogue with the historiographical analysis, the last part of the article will summarize some of the main existing open questions, as well as the possibly fruitful lines of research ahead.