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Paper short abstract:

I reflect on the everyday practice of talk to consider how persons are made and unmade in the city of Buenos Aires. I ask what kinds of persons can be produced in the fluid exchange of words and what ways of imagining persons develop in a culture that is steeped in psychoanalytic imaginary.

Paper long abstract:

While conducting fieldwork among middle class residence of Buenos Aires I began reflecting on the role that talk plays in the production of personhood. Wherever one goes in this urban surrounding, coffee houses abound and groups of two, three or more people are gather around tables chatting, drinking and until very recent smoking for hours on end. On sunny days parks are filled with sunbathers who share a maté over a long afternoon and at night groups of friends gather in local parillas to collectively consume a good beef portion and chat away.

But talk among members of the middle class was not limited to social settings, in fact as I soon discovered the majority of the people I had worked with had undergone or were undergoing psychoanalytic therapy. While mostly sessions are individual they prompt many meta-reflections over coffee between friends. Moreover, and many more significantly middle class porteños' talk was saturated with psychoanalytic terminology and images.

But what does talk have to do with becoming a person? In this paper I reflect on the everyday practice of talk (along with shared eating and drinking) to consider how persons are made and unmade in this vibrant city. I ask what kinds of persons can be produced in the fluid exchange of words and what ways of imagining persons develop in a culture that is steeped in psychoanalytic imaginary. In the second part of the paper I offer a set of short reflections on the ethics of writing about persons in this context.