Description
Book SynopsisExamines the ways popular protests are experienced and remembered by those who participate in them. This book focuses on the roles of two young women, Nana and Laura, in uprisings in Argentina. It offers discussions of resistance and the combined effects of globalization, neoliberal economic policies, and political corruption in Argentina.
Trade Review”
Contentious Lives dares to present the lives of two women who lived hard times but at a certain moment plunged into popular movements and then had to bear the consequences of their participation, to make sense of what they had done, and to fashion new relations with other people. The two women have entrusted Javier Auyero with stories few others would want to see in print: stories of suffering, indiscretion, indecision, bitterness, regret, and passion.”—Charles Tilly, Columbia University
”Javier Auyero proves that you can go home again—and that with the proper experience elsewhere you can see more than you would have noticed if you had never left. Returning to his native Argentina as a sympathetic, well trained observer of political conflict, he shows us how intense personal lives and passionate political participation connect with each other. Auyero tells stories of Argentinian political and economic crises from an entirely fresh perspective.”—Viviana Zelizer, Princeton University
Table of Contents5. The Lived 1993: The Coming and Making of the Explosion 115
6. The Lived Sixteenth: The Feast and the Remains of the Riot 137
7. Nana’s Life: “Thirty-six Years of Crap” 153
8. Contested Memories 172
Conclusions: Ethnography and Recognition 191
Appendix. On Fieldwork, Theory, and the Question of Biography 201
Notes 209
References 217
Index 229
About the Series ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: On the Intersection of Individual and Collective Biographies and Protest 1
Part I. The Picketer 15
1. The Day before the Pueblada: A Town on the Edge 29
2. Laura’s Life: “How Did I Fall So Far?” 48
3. Being-in-the-Road: Insurgent Identities 60
4. After the Road: Contentious Legacies 89
Part II. The Queen of the Riot 101
