Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Post-neoliberal labor in Patagonia: informality and citizenship in the green economy

  • Published:
Dialectical Anthropology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article examines post-neoliberal labor in Argentina by attending ethnographically to seasonal workers in the ecotourism destination of El Chaltén and Los Glaciares National Park. In Argentina, post-neoliberalism is associated with the presidential administrations of Néstor Kirchner (2003–2007) and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007–2015), which advanced a center-left political agenda ideologically opposed to the neoliberal reforms of the military dictatorship (1976–1983) and the Menem government (1989–1999). I argue that Kirchnerist post-neoliberalism has facilitated a vision of labor-based citizenship that is embraced but not realized by Patagonian tourism workers, drawing attention to the entrenched conditions of informality that exist within local and national contexts. The article contributes to scholarly debates about post-neoliberalism by highlighting the representational pluralism of Kirchnerismo and the conditions of receptivity under which this political ideology is refracted through local citizenship vernaculars.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Brie (2009), for example, has articulated four different post-neoliberal pathways ranging from totalitarian imperialist capitalism to sympathetic neoconservative capitalism to social democratic capitalism to solidarity societies based on a sustainable mixed economy.

  2. Poverty and extreme poverty, respectively, defined as surviving on $4 USD/day and $2.50 USD/day, fell from 2002 crisis highs of 45.5 and 29.2% of the national population to 14.3 and 6.6% by 2010 (Weisbrot et al. 2011:8–10).

  3. Féliz (2012:112) places informality as high as 44.7% in the private sector, while 13% of public sector workers have what are called “trash contracts.” Trash contracts refer to employment arrangements in which employers hire employees for a “probationary period” without benefits, which can translate into a permanent state of informal employment (Whitson 2007a:128).

  4. The ethnographic subjects cited in this article have been given pseudonyms to protect their identities and ensure confidentiality.

  5. “Los Terrenos en El Chaltén,” La Cachaña, 9 September 2011, at http://www.lacachania.com.ar/noticia.php?id_nota=10 (last accessed 4 January 2017).

  6. In Argentina, the healthcare system is tripartite. There is private health care for the affluent, a higher quality public health care system for legal workers run by unions, and an underfunded and basic public system (Cavagnero et al. 2010).

References

  • Ban, Cornel. 2013. Brazil’s liberal neo-developmentalism: New paradigm or edited orthodoxy? Review of International Political Economy 20 (2): 298–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernard, H.Russell. 2011. Research methods in anthropology: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brand, Ulrich, and Nicola Sekler. 2009. Postneoliberalism: Catch-all word or valuable analytical and political concept? Development Dialogue 51: 5–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos. 2016. New developmentalism as a Weberian ideal type. In Macroeconomics and development: Roberto Frenkel and the economics of Latin America, ed. Mario Damill, Martín Rapetti, and Guillermo Rozenwurcel, 373–383. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Brie, Michael. 2009. Ways out of the crisis of neoliberalism. Development Dialogue 51: 15–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calvo, Ernesto, and M.Victoria Murillo. 2012. Argentina: The persistence of peronism. Journal of Democracy 23 (2): 148–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cavagnero, Eleonora, Guy Carrin, and Rubén Torres. 2010. A national social health insurance plan for Argentina: Simulating its financial feasibility. Geneva: World Health Organization.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff. 2012. Theory from the south, or, How Euro-America is evolving toward Africa. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ebenau, Matthias, and Victoria Liberatore. 2013. Neodevelopmentalist state capitalism in Brazil and Argentina: Chances, limits and contradictions. Der Moderne Staat–Zeitschrift Fur Public Policy, Recht Und Management 6 (1): 105–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Escobar, Arturo. 2010. Latin America at a crossroads: Alternative modernizations, post-liberalism, or post-development? Cultural Studies 24 (1): 1–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Etchemendy, Sebastián, and Ruth Berins Collier. 2007. Down but not out: Union resurgence and segmented neocorporatism in Argentina (2003–2007). Politics & Society 35 (3): 363–401.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Faulk, Karen Ann. 2013. In the wake of neoliberalism: Citizenship and human rights in Argentina. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Féliz, Mariano. 2012. Neo-developmentalism: Beyond neoliberalism? Capitalist crisis and Argentina’s development since the 1990s. Historical Materialism 20 (2): 105–123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flores-Macías, Gustavo. 2012. After neoliberalism?: The left and economic reforms in Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving. 1990. The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodale, Mark, and Nancy Grey Postero (eds.). 2013. Neoliberalism, interrupted: Social change and contested governance in contemporary Latin America. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gramsci, Antonio. 2005. Prison notebooks. New York: International Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grugel, Jean, and Pía Riggirozzi. 2007. The return of the state in Argentina. International Affairs 83 (1): 87–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grugel, Jean, and Pía Riggirozzi (eds.). 2009. Governance after neoliberalism in Latin America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grugel, Jean, and Pía Riggirozzi. 2012. Post-neoliberalism in Latin America: Rebuilding and reclaiming the state after crisis. Development and Change 43 (1): 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James, Daniel. 2001. Resistance and integration: Peronism and the Argentine working class, 1946–1976. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kennemore, Amy, and Gregory Weeks. 2011. Twenty-first century socialism? The elusive search for a post-neoliberal development model in Bolivia and Ecuador. Bulletin of Latin American Research 30 (3): 267–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lazar, Sian. 2012. A desire to formalize work? Comparing trade union strategies in Bolivia and Argentina. Anthropology of Work Review 33 (1): 15–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levitsky, Steven, and Maria Victoria Murillo. 2008. Argentina: From Kirchner to Kirchner. Journal of Democracy 19 (2): 16–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, Paul H. 2009. The agony of Argentine capitalism: From Menem to the Kirchners. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Limón, José Eduardo. 1994. Dancing with the devil: Society and cultural poetics in Mexican-American south texas. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, Karl. 2003. Capital: A critique of political economy, vol. 1. New York: International Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mendoza, Marcos. 2016. Educational policing: Park rangers and the politics of the green (E)state in Patagonia. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 21 (1): 173–192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ong, Aihwa. 2006. Neoliberalism as exception: Mutations in citizenship and sovereignty. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Peck, Jamie, Nik Theodore, and Neil Brenner. 2010. Postneoliberalism and Its malcontents. Antipode 41: 94–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, William I. 2010. Latin America and global capitalism: A critical globalization perspective. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodkey, Evin. 2016. Disposable labor, repurposed: Outsourcing deportees in the call center industry. Anthropology of Work Review 37 (1): 34–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sader, Emir. 2009. Postneoliberalism in Latin America. Development Dialogue 51: 171–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiller, Friedrich. 1982. On the aesthetic education of man: In a series of letters. New York: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shever, Elana. 2012. Resources for reform: Oil and neoliberalism in Argentina. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutton, Barbara. 2008. Contesting racism: democratic citizenship, human rights, and antiracist politics in Argentina. Latin American Perspectives 35 (6): 106–121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webber, Jeffery R., and Barry Carr (eds.). 2013. The new Latin American left: Cracks in the empire. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weeks, Samuel. 2015. Longing for “normal” post-fordism: Cape verdean labor-power on a Lisbon periphery in crisis. Anthropology of Work Review 36 (1): 13–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weisbrot, Mark. 2015. Failed: What the “experts” got wrong about the global economy. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Weisbrot, Mark, Rebecca Ray, Juan A. Montecino, and Sara Kozameh. 2011. The Argentine success story and its implications. Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitson, Risa. 2007a. Beyond the crisis: Economic globalization and informal work in urban Argentina. Journal of Latin American Geography 6 (2): 121–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitson, Risa. 2007b. Hidden struggles: Spaces of power and resistance in informal work in urban Argentina. Environment and Planning A 39 (12): 2916–2934.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wylde, Christopher. 2012. Latin America after neoliberalism: Developmental regimes in post-crisis states. Basingstoke, Hampshire: PalgraveMacmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The Social Science Research Council, the University of Chicago, and the University of Mississippi generously funded this research project and helped bring this article to fruition. I would like to thank Joseph Masco, John Comaroff, William Mazzarella, Stephan Palmié, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Mississippi, Lamar Hall, Room 547, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS, 38677-1848, USA

    Marcos Mendoza

Authors
  1. Marcos Mendoza
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marcos Mendoza.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mendoza, M. Post-neoliberal labor in Patagonia: informality and citizenship in the green economy. Dialect Anthropol 41, 55–76 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-017-9446-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-017-9446-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation