Can the Migrants Speak? Cultural Critique and Engaged Anthropology in Argentina

PIZARRO, CYNTHIA

Congreso; Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology; 2018

Recalling G.C. Spivak and Ch. Hale, the aim of this talk is to reflect on the challenges I have faced along my trajectory as a Social Anthropologist regarding the mutual implications of the production of scientific knowledge and socio-political engagement. I have often felt paralyzed because of the apparently incongruent juxtaposition between talking with subaltern groups; writing about their oppressive situations; teaching theories and methodologies to address their problems and to propose creative solutions; joining them in their struggles and making their claims public; and, at the same time, posing critical questions about their essentialized self-constructions.As a leit motive, this kind of anxiety frequently aroused during my researches on the tactics and strategies of resistance developed by indigenous communities, peasants and/or migrants in the short, mid and long term in various places of Argentina. So I would like to talk about these tensions between critical theory production and social advocacy; that is to say, about the implications of speaking about and, at the same time, speaking for/with the subjects of study.I will focus on my studies about the experiences of Bolivians and Paraguayans who come and go from peasant/indigenous societies in their countries of birth to rural areas in Argentina in order to have what they call a better life, and of those who have settled down. Migration studies usually uncritically categorize them as ?(labor) migrants? and classify them by ?nationality? and ?migratory status?. But these categories do not homogeneously comprise the experiences of ?Paraguayan? or ?Bolivian? ?(labor) migrants?. Moreover, this kind of understanding reproduces popular stereotypes which are biased by methodological nationalism and by economic and legal reductionism. I will argue that social scientists and practitioners must deconstruct such common believes in order to produce critical knowledge and to support subaltern strategies of resistance.I will address the ways in which I have managed to handle the above said paradox by co-producing knowledge both between scholars and practitioners and between them and those persons who are called migrants. On the one hand, I have created interdisciplinary research teams which gather scientists and graduate and undergraduate university students specialized in Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, International Relations, Economy, Psychology, Agronomy, Environmental Sciences, Rural Development Studies and Communication Sciences, among others. On the other hand, these collaborative researches have always included several projects which aimed to influence public opinion by co-producing reports, brochures, photo exhibitions and documentary films with our subjects of study; organizing conferences, workshops and public debates about hot issues; giving scientific advice to policy makers and stake holders; and, contesting biased media information in blogs, TV and radio programs.Finally, I will refer to the interdisciplinary networks of scientists and practitioners specialized on migration issues which I have fostered. For instance, in 2010, I founded the Network of Argentine Researchers on Contemporary International Migrations which has so far held three Seminars and the results of our discussions have been published in three books. I have also organized several workshops, seminars and congresses on the same topic, in which professionals from several Latin-American countries and others from North America, Europe and Eurasia took part.