In an uprising heard around the world, people in Argentina took to the streets on December 19th & 20th, 2001, shouting "!Que se vayan todos!" These words (All of them out!), and the thousands of people banging pots and pans, opened a period of intense social unrest and political creativity that led to the collapse of government after government. Neighborhoods organized themselves into hundreds of popular assemblies across the country, the unemployed workers movement acquired a new visibility, workers took over factories and businesses. Deeply involved in these movements were the activists who made up Colectivo Situaciones. With the embers of that December's aftermath still burning, Colectivo Situaciones militantly researched and wrote 19 and 20. Locating themselves among the "horizontally organized subjectivities that insisted on not being represented by politicians but maintaining and developing their own powers of political expression" that Micheal Hardt notes in his introduction, Colectivo Situaciones gathers, interrogates, and offers forth the words of unemployed workers, factory occupiers, insurgent intellectuals, and children of the disappeared. From their investigations is revealed the birth of a new social protagonism and the de-institutional power (potencia) they wield. 19 and 20 has been praised as this generation's 18th Brumaire and as Marx's analysis of that struggle helped set the stage for, twenty years later, the Paris Commune we find ourselves here. Revisiting and exploring the forms of counterpower that emerged from the shadow of neoliberal rule we find the book's potencia has only grown. In the intervening years the analysis of Colectivo Situaciones has been passed from hand to hand and multitudes of citizens from different countries have learned their own ways to chant !Que se vayan todos!, from Iceland to Tunisia, from Spain to Greece, from Tahrir Square to Black Lives Matter. Colectivo Situaciones' practice of militant research--of engaging with movements' own thought processes--resonates with everyone seeking to think current events and movements, and through that to gather the foundation of a commune for the 21st century.

Documents the theories, debates, successes, and failures of a rebellious tactic to build popular power. Genocide in the Neighborhood documents the autonomist practice of the “escrache,� a system of public shaming that emerged in the late 1990s to vindicate the lives of those disappeared under the Argentinean dictatorship and to protest the amnesty granted to perpetrators of the killing.  The book is an example of militant research, an investigative method that Colectivo Situaciones has pioneered. Through a series of hypotheses and two sets of interviews, Genocide in the Neighborhood documents the theories, debates, successes, and failures of the escraches—what Whitener provisionally defines as “something between a march, an action or happening, and a public shaming—investigates the nature of rebellion, discusses the value of historical and cultural memory to resistance, and suggests decentralized ways to agitate for justice.  The book follows the popular Argentine uprising in 2001, a period of intense social unrest and political creativity that led to the collapse of government after government. The power that ordinary people developed for themselves in public space soon gave birth to a movement of neighborhoods organizing themselves into hundreds of popular assemblies across the country, the unemployed workers struggle mobilizing, and workers taking over factories and businesses. These events marked a sea change, a before and an after for Argentina that has since resonated around the world. In its wake Genocide in the Neighborhood tactfully deploys a much needed model of political resistance.

In the heat of an economic and political crises, people in Argenita took to the streets on December 19, 2001, shouting, Que se vayan todos These words -- All of them out -- hurled by thousands banging pots and pans, struck at every politician, economist, and journalist. Colectivo Situaciones wrote this book in the heat of that December's aftermath. Ten years have passed, yet the book remains and relevant and as fresh as the day it came out. Multitudes of citizens from different countries have learned their own ways to chant Que se vayan todos ; from Iceland to Tunisia, from Spain to Greece, from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. Colectivo Situaciones' practice resonates with everyone seeking to think current events and movements, and through that to build a new world in the shell of the old.