"After the fire. Emotions, trauma and political mobilization in contemporary Argentina"

ZENOBI, DIEGO

París

Workshop; "Materialities and emotions in disasters"; 2019

Centre de recherches internationales-Sciences Politiques

In this paper I address how the emotional dimension has been displayed during the political struggle carried out by the victims of a fire where 194 young people died and thousands were injured. The public demand of the victims and the contentious mobilization they promoted were shaped around an emotional language involving ideas on psychological trauma. Here I study the conflictive processes through which certain behaviours are classified (or not) as emotional, morally evaluated, and mobilized to produce effects of power. From this starting point, I analyse the conflicts between the contentious movement and the local administration, but also among some factions within the movement. I also examine the role played by the psychologists who accompanied the victims and became an important resource to nurture their political cause. Finally, I pose some questions on the analytical status we could give to emotional register in our research studies and on the political consequences of our decisions on this matter.