Paper short abstract:

By addressing three cases the paper discuss on the many ways in which (being in) crisis is construct in Argentina. I will show how the notion of uncertainty, social, political, and economic insecurity can only be understood within an historical perspective and in terms of group and class anchors.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years discourses on global crisis has been gaining importance as a given reality. In Argentina the economic and social indices however have moved out another way. In the last decade unemployment, inequality, and poverty rates have decline for example have declined significantly and social security have grown considerably. Despite this, and with the persistence of major social and economic problems, Argentina is, for many, seen as a society in crisis. By addressing investigate three cases (Middle classes and its relation with the U.S. dollar, the experience of people living on the informal waste collection, and the ambulant vendors in the city of Buenos Aires) this work aims to contribute to understanding on how the crisis is lived, imagined, and created in relation to national, group and class imaginaries that cannot be understood without focusing on imaginary around a model of a Country and the idea of a way of living, without inquiring into the individual and collective trajectories, and focusing on power struggles among different social groups in which the State plays a key role. Thus, this paper seeks to contribute from an anthropological perspective on the understanding of the complexity of current social processes at the national level (Argentina) but also in a Global level by showing the framework of discourse and action that build the current (idea) of (world) crisis.

Paper Download (573 KB)