Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina

Notes

notes introduction 1 In one of the many versions of the Greek myth, early-in-life Tiresias surprises Athena while she is taking a bath. In punishment for having seen his daughter naked, Zeus blinds young Tiresias but comforts him with the gift of seercraft. 2 I borrow the term ‘‘tempography’’ from Eviatar Zerubavel (1979). 3 I wish to thank Ian Roxborough for making me aware of this important point about my own work. two. urban relegation 1 All these entail, to paraphrase Peck and Tickell (2002: 384), the ‘‘active destruction and discreditation’’ of the import substitution industrialization model of economic growth and its related Keynesian welfarist-populist institutions . 2 Shantytowns are the main form of informal settlement in the city of Buenos Aires, while ‘‘squatter settlements’’ predominate in the Conurbano Bonaerense . On the di√erence between these two urban informal forms, see Cravino et al. 2008. 3 For diverse descriptions of living conditions in shantytowns, see Alarcón 2003; Auyero 2000; Auyero and Swistun 2009; and Epele 2010. 4 Given the lack of reliable o≈cial data, considerable polemics revolve around existing figures (La Nación, February 3, 2009; Página12, March 21, 2009). 5 ‘‘Class Divide Hardens for Argentina’s Growing Poor,’’ Christian Science Monitor, January 7, 2008. 6 This name is a pseudonym. 7 A decade ago, authors such as Kees Koonings (2001) and Roberto BriceñoLe ón (1999) argued that a new kind of violence was emerging in Latin America. This violence was ‘‘increasingly available to a variety of social actors 170 notes to chapter two and [it was] no longer a resource of elites or security forces’’ (Koonings 2001: 403). This new violence was, according to this strand of scholarship, quite varied; it included ‘‘everyday criminal and street violence, riots, social cleansing , private account selling, police arbitrariness, paramilitary activities, postCold War guerrillas, etc.’’ (403). How ‘‘new’’ this violence was (and still is) has been the subject of much debate among academics. As Polly Wilding asserts: ‘‘Whether a perceived shift in actors and motives (from predominantly political to predominantly criminal) reflects a significant shift in the lived experiences of violence and insecurity is debatable. Arguably, actors have mutated but not changed; in some instances uniformed police o≈cers are less likely to be involved in overt violence, but the same individuals may be functioning under the remit of death squads or militia groups. In any case, state violence against particular social groups, including poor, marginalized communities, as a form or result of exclusion and oppression, is an enduring, rather than new, aspect of modern society’’ (2010: 725). Although the discussion is important for those attempting to diagnose the course and form of diverse types of violence in the region as a whole (Pearce 2010), the ‘‘newness’’ of violence is beyond dispute for those residing in territories of relegation in urban Buenos Aires. 8 Following Peck and Tickell, we could characterize these three forms of regulation as constitutive parts of the ‘‘roll-out’’ phase of neoliberalism. As they assert, in this new guise neoliberalism ‘‘is increasingly associated with the political foregrounding of new modes of ‘social’ and penal policy-making, concerned specifically with the aggressive reregulation, disciplining, and containment of those marginalized or dispossessed by the [previous] neoliberalization ’’ (2002: 389). 9 As the journalist and human rights activist Horacio Verbitsky (2010) puts it: ‘‘There is no obvious relationship between the number of people in prison and crime rates. The former is related to political decisions and these in turn respond to electoral strategies’’ (2010: 10). 10 Compare these figures with the education level of the general population of the province of Buenos Aires: 3 percent without instruction, 12 percent with incomplete elementary education, 31 percent with complete elementary education , 21 percent with incomplete high school, and 16 percent with finished high school (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos [indec], www .indec.gov.ar). 11 See also the annual report of the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria (2010). 12 From Cristian Alarcón, ‘‘El Barrio Fuerte,’’ Revista C, November 2008; my translation. 13 On the growth of evictions in the city of Buenos Aires, see Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions 2007. notes to chapter four 171 14 From ‘‘Cuando el desalojo porteño es express,’’ Página12, January 15, 2010. 15 From Lucía Alvarez, ‘‘Desalojados’’; my translation. 16 This encouragement to apply for a housing subsidy in the midst...