Coping with catastrophe: an ethnography of the Argentine middle class in crisis

Argentina experienced its severest crisis since the 1983 fall of the military dictatorship in December 2001: economic disaster, lack of political legitimacy, a democracy under threat, extreme poverty, violence and crime, widespread feelings of injustice, and intense social protest. Despite a promising improvement since mid-2002, Argentina continues at a turning point in its history: the hope of belonging some day to the &8216;First World&8217;, once the country&8217;s human and natural resources will be fully utilized, is giving way to the awareness than Argentina will very likely join the &8216;Third World&8217; with its almost insurmountable social, economic and political problems. For the impoverished urban middle classes&8211;which used to be the largest and richest of Latin America&8211;this is a daily dilemma: they have been hit hardest by this catastrophic crisis, have carried out public protests, founded grass roots organizations and are resorting to unprecedented strategies of survival after their privileged living conditions have evaporated. Since then, the crisis has continued not only in concrete effects and reactions, but also as social and cultural interpretations of a traumatic past in an uncertain present. In fact, crises have been recurrent in Argentine history; hence, people perceive an ambivalent future, hopeful and fearful at the same time. They are always both awaiting the next calamity and are daydreaming about a new and prosperous future in a North American or European country. This historic transition and the ensuing reactions cannot be understood without thoroughly investigating how the middle classes manage and give meaning to the recent crisis that is affecting every aspect of their lives, and its links to a social memory of past national crises. The proposed research intends to study: 1. the effects of the present multidimensional crisis on the everyday practices of the Argentine middle class; 2. how people experience the crisis when their post-1983 worldview cannot make sense of the recent events; and 3. the relationship between the remembrance of past national crises (1976 coup, 1982 Falklands/Malvinas War) and present-day practices and emerging interpretative frames. The ethnographic fieldwork will focus on the impoverished middle class. Participant observation and in-depth interviews will be carried out in public sites where people express their criticism of the political system, and in domestic places which manifest their survival strategies in coping with the crisis.