Date of Award

2014

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Honors Thesis

Department

Anthropology

First Advisor

Elise Edwards

Abstract

Protest, mobilization, recovery, assembly, and communal revolution. Surviving through their country's massive economic crisis of2001, Argentineans learned to use their creative resourcefulness to take over recently debilitated factories and maintain their jobs. As they saw their hours cut, monetary livelihoods taken away from them, and no other jobs to tum to in such an economic downturn, Argentine workers mobilized and assembled together to take over their failing workplaces, and build it up themselves. They proved the potential of workers activism by transforming their previous work sites into ones without bosses-led by the community of workers, with guaranteed pay and treatment, and most importantly, with a guaranteed job at the end of each day. I explore the process of revolutionary social and political reconstruction spurred by a devastating economic collapse by looking at the takeover of businesses throughout Argentina, and the ways this process necessitated newly defining citizenship, the Argentine working class identity, and an imagined nation. I will argue that through this newfound Argentine national identity, direct participatory citizenship, and optimism for a better nation, such drastic reform became possible.

Download

Share

COinS