"Contentious Lives" examines the ways popular protests are
experienced and remembered, individually and collectively, by those
who participate in them. Javier Auyero focuses on the roles of two
young women, Nana and Laura, in uprisings in Argentina (the two-day
protest in the northwestern city of Santiago del Estero in 1993 and
the six-day road blockade in the southern oil towns of Cutral-co
and Plaza Huincul in 1996) and the roles of the protests in their
lives. Laura was the spokesperson of the picketers in Cutral-co and
Plaza Huincul; Nana was an activist in the 1993 protests. In
addition to exploring the effects of these episodes on their lives,
Auyero considers how each woman's experiences shaped what she said
and did during the uprisings, and later, the ways she recalled the
events. While the protests were responses to the consequences of
political corruption and structural adjustment policies, they were
also, as Nana's and Laura's stories reveal, quests for recognition,
respect, and dignity.
Auyero reconstructs Nana's and Laura's biographies through oral
histories and diaries. Drawing on interviews with many other
protesters, newspaper articles, judicial records, government
reports, and video footage, he provides sociological and historical
context for their stories. The women's accounts reveal the
frustrations of lives overwhelmed by gender domination, the
deprivations brought about by hyper-unemployment and the withering
of the welfare component of the state, and the achievements and
costs of collective action. Balancing attention to large-scale
political and economic processes with acknowledgment of the
plurality of meanings emanating from personal experiences, "
Contentious Lives" is an insightful, penetrating, and timely
contribution to discussions of popular resistance and the combined
effects of globalization, neoliberal economic policies, and
political corruption in Argentina and elsewhere.
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