Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the context and legacy of crisis in Argentina, and assert that responses to crisis do not only involve the merging of old and new, but that they are also, concurrently, responses to both old and new problems - many of which were evident in the 1990s and before.

Paper long abstract:

The spectre of crisis haunts the capitalist world. Indeed, crisis was an all too familiar phenomenon throughout the second half of the twentieth century, especially in Latin America during the 1980s debt crisis. Its usage passed the Rubicon in the post-Lehman Brothers world and entered the everyday lexicon of advanced capitalist societies in a way not seen since the since the Great Depression. This paper will analyse the nature and effects of crisis in Argentina, setting the scene for the discussion of the legacies of crisis that will be discussed in this panel.. First, it seeks to reject false dichotomies of 'old' and 'new'; instead synthesising them in order to incorporate both elements of continuity and elements of change into analysis. We assert that responses to crisis do not only involve the merging of old and new, but that they are also, concurrently, responses to both old and new problems - many of which were evident in the 1990s and before. Second, it recognises that crisis manifests itself in a number of realms - political, economic, social - and that heuristic devices employed to investigate them must subsequently also be drawn from a number of academic disciplines. This second point is in recognition of the fact that models of political economy, by their very nature and definition, come to encompass all aspects of social life and social reproduction.

Paper short abstract:

This article will seek to analyse one of the key tensions present in postneoliberalism; a tension between a desire to see the return of the state in the development process versus the forces of international capital in the contemporary global political economy.

Paper long abstract:

This article will seek to analyse one of the key tensions present in postneoliberalism; a tension between a desire to see the return of the state in the development process on the part of domestic political economy, versus the forces of international capital in the contemporary global political economy that seek to break down all barriers to its continued (re)production and expansion. This analysis will draw on the experiences of Argentina during its post-crisis (2001) period, although focusing primarily on the administration of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK) (2008-present).

Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore the nature of responses to financial crisis of 2001/2002 in Argentina analysing to what extent these responses signal departure neoliberalism. While there is rejection of orthodox neoliberalism, there is not retreat from reliance on markets.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will explore the nature of responses to financial crisis of 2001/2002 in Argentina analysing to what extent these responses signal departure from Washington Consensus-led neoliberalism. Under Convertibility Regime neoliberalism found embrace in its closest version to orthodoxy that core of state strategies such as removal of flexibility in monetary policies to achieve price stability, unrestricted financial and trade liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisations explicitly tied growth to markets and external finance. Experience of financial crisis of 2001/2002 stimulated debate about the need for greater role for the state in economy and led to reversal of several aspects of neoliberal reforms under Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (2007- ) administrations. It will be argued that key policy changes such as export taxes, capital and foreign exchange controls and recently, nationalisation of oil company YPF represent departure from automatic pilot neoliberal strategies. Meanwhile, it will be argued that there is not retreat from reliance on markets and promotion of stable exchange rate and prices, trade liberalisation and deregulation of foreign investment to access capital mobility and efficiency. Subsequently, this paper argues, rather than retreat from neoliberalism, post-crisis strategies represent greater state role to develop regulatory mechanisms to pursue competitiveness with more productive goals minimising destabilising effects of capital mobility such as currency appreciation and price fluctuations

Paper short abstract:

My presentation will examine Leonel Luna’s artwork La conquista del desierto (2004), which portrays piquetero groups and other demonstrators during the 2001 crisis. I will demonstrate how Luna’s work suggests an interpretation of the crisis that highlights the often side-lined mediation of race in Argentina.

Paper long abstract:

My presentation will examine Leonel Luna's artwork La conquista del desierto (2004), a version of Juan Manuel de Blanes's Ocupación militar del Río Negro (1896). Blanes's epic canvas is the iconic rendering of the Conquest of the Desert, and appears in the back of the 100-peso bill. In La conquista del desierto Luna intervenes the original painting by replacing the figures of Roca, his officers and indigenous people, with photographs of piqueteros and other demonstrators taken during the 2001 protests.

I will demonstrate how, by linking contemporary piquetero groups to 19th-Century indigenous communities, Luna's work suggests an interpretation of the 2001 crisis not only as a financial and political episode but also as an event inscribed in a specific history of political conflict and power relationships that goes back to the very foundation of the modern Argentinian nation-state. Particularly, I will demonstrate how La conquista del desierto highlights the often side-lined mediation of race and racism in the definitions of piquetero and other working-class groups during the crisis and its aftermath, and underscores the continuity of forms of racial domination throughout the country's modern history. Through this, Luna's artwork invites to re-read Argentina's political history and the crisis through the perspective of race and its articulation with other social variables.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes cultural policies of Argentina from 2003, studding continuity and change in seeking to define its character and particularities. We will describe how the Peronist concept of people coexist in tension with a multicultural approach at internal and regional levels of national cultural policy.

Paper long abstract:

After 2001 financial crack, Argentina developed deep social and institutional transformations. The elections of 2003, which gave the power to former President Nestor Kirchner were the beginning of a new period in country history. It has been characterized by the reconfiguration of political field, a significant change in economic policies and also the debate around national identity. In this regard, equally than in many countries of the region, as part of the "left shift" after neoliberal domination, cultural policies deepened and diversified. Also policies aimed to regional consensus in the defense of native heritage and as part of a particular an accent in popular culture were developed. However, the new public activity in the area has been characterized as of construction of hegemony in a Gramsci's sense, trough the promotion of allied artists, large events and the development of an own media apparatus. This paper analyzes this process studding continuity and change in Argentinian cultural policies seeking to define its character and particularities. We will describe how the Peronist concept of people coexist in tension with a multicultural approach at internal and regional levels of national cultural policy.

Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to show that La Salada market’s growth and expansion in the aftermath of the 2001 crisis is the outcome of an intended shadow policy aimed at giving response to the growing demand of clothes and jobs by low-income sectors.

Paper long abstract:

Similar to protest and social movements, market relations have also been a response to the 2001 Argentinean crisis. The emergence of La Salada market in the Great Buenos Aires during the nineties is a good example of growing exchanges oriented towards coping with the sequels of hyperinflation and neoliberal economic policies. As soon as the worst part of the crisis was over this market gained a new momentum. What started as a very local phenomenon gradually became an expanding mode of production based on a myriad of small sweatshops and on an increase in working-class clothing consumption. But this spectacular growth of La Salada, which reached distant regions and neighboring countries, would not have been possible without the illegal tutelage of different State agencies. This paper attempts to show that La Salada market's growth and expansion in the aftermath of the 2001 crisis is the outcome of an intended shadow policy aimed at giving response to the growing demand of clothes and jobs by low-income sectors. Using data collected during my recent six-month ethnographic fieldwork in Buenos Aires, I will show evidence about a core element in every political economy: a functioning tax system which, in this case, is informal and effectively imposed upon producers of counterfeit clothes and stallholders. By showing how this informal tax system works, which state agencies at different levels are implied, and how many resources flow around, I attempt to expose the main features of a particular way of promoting economic activities in turbulent times.

Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the use of incarceration in Argentina from 2003 to 2012 in the context of the social and economic recovery during this time. It critically analyses the legacies of the 2001 crisis and social policies responses in the context of current global security policies.

Paper long abstract:

The number of people incarcerated in Argentina grew exponentially during the years of Menem's administration and the implementation of neoliberal policies. In only six years, from 1996 to 2002, the total prison population in Argentina doubled. This trend has been especially acute for women: from 1990 to 2002, female prison population in federal prisons nearly tripled. While social and labour conditions improved considerably in the country since 2003, incarceration rates continued to increase.

This paper will look at imprisonment and incarceration as a relevant site to study the consequences but also the limitations of economic, political and social recovery in the context of the global security paradigm. Based on a varied methodology, including ethnographic work in prisons and with prison families, l critically analyse penitentiary as well as the progressive social and labour policies promoted since 2003. The paper will argue that prison is a key governance mechanism in contexts of crisis and that there is a need to disentangle the study of imprisonment from the study of crime in order to unveil the specific ways in which imprisonment contributes to multiply borders and dilute the definition of citizenship in post-crisis contexts.