The entrepreneur-self as a moral repertoire in middle classes: an ethnographic analysis in Buenos Aires

BLANCO ESMORIS MARÍA FLORENCIA

Múnich

Simposio; Aspirational politics? Exploring repercussions of emerging middle classes in Latin America; 2019

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität - LMU

Based on ethnographic fieldnotes about the ways of living and inhabiting the house by middle-class families located in Haedo (Buenos Aires, Argentina) , I propose to understand how new moral values break into the daily scene to become an argument about preferences, choices or political practices framed in what I call the "entrepreneur self" . My hypothesis is that the ?entrepreneur self? is a new form of citizenship expressed ?at home?, i.e. the cultivation of the self and its subjectivity in the domestic sphere by withdrawing from the public scene (Sennet, 2011). At home, social relations are developed, roles are put into action, affections are expressed, emotional ties are forged and ?moral boundaries? (Lamont and Molnar, 2002; Howell, 2005; Noel, 2011) are built. This is even deeper in Argentina where the to-own-your-own house concept has consolidated the middle classes imagery since the second half of the 20th century.