From neighbors to picketers: unemployed workers’ movements and subaltern groups in contemporary Argentina

Abstract

Since the 1980s, in Argentina, the neighborhood becomes the vital space – the only one – of political action and organization for the most fragile fractions of subaltern groups. This article intents to analyze the significant changes that the raise and development of the Unemployed Workers Movements (picketers) operate, since the late 1990s, in the political action and thought of this popular sectors, even though the neighborhood still remains the backbone of their political organization. We understand that the Argentinean MTD express, in many ways, multiple aspects about the reconfiguration of the relation between labor and capital in contemporary capitalism (post-1970).The discussion presented here derives from the research for our PhD degree, whose sources were documents produced by MTD – papers, journals, pamphlets, releases – and thematic and life history interviews with those movements’ workers.