Articles and chapters
Social Analysis, 2022
In Argentina’s Gran Chaco, indigenous Guaraní men play football assiduously. This artic... more In Argentina’s Gran Chaco, indigenous Guaraní men play football assiduously. This article explores how the game articulates with their sense of masculinity. Historical engagements in the Chaco’s extractive labor markets have shaped understandings of masculinity that emphasize strength, courage, and provision. However, the decline of the region’s extractive industries has made these forms of masculinity unattainable for young men. Games of football, including betting and drinking off the pitch, create bounded and embodied experiences that allow young men to experience fantasies of productivity and collectivity while disavowing everyday experiences of unemployment. These fanta-sies are particularly striking because they misrecognize women’s grow-ing role as providers even as they sustain an illusion of autonomous masculine politics that elides ties of kinship and dependency.
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Thrift and Its Paradoxes: From Domestic to Political Economy, 2022
In Argentina’s Gran Chaco, Guaraní households ensure their subsistence through the skillful manag... more In Argentina’s Gran Chaco, Guaraní households ensure their subsistence through the skillful management of wages, patronage, and welfare. This chapter explores the extent to which thrift and anti-thrift characterize Guaraní engagements with resource flows. In a context marked by unemployment and a dwindling frontier economy, the chapter shows the gendered social relations through which resources are elicited, sourced, managed and spent. The Guaraní case demonstrates how the boundaries between thrift and anti-thrift are blurred in everyday life and illustrates how the different scales and temporalities of resource flows articulate households, settlements, extractive economies, and democratic politics. [Contact me for pdf]
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Tram[p]as De La Comunicación Y La Cultura, 2021
Sebastián Reyes fue un indígena chané que a partir de su formación en comunicación comunitaria y ... more Sebastián Reyes fue un indígena chané que a partir de su formación en comunicación comunitaria y periodismo creó programas en Radio Nacional (Tartagal), conformó la Red de Comunicadores Indígenas y creó una radio en la comunidad rural Yacuy, para brindar información y transmitir el acervo cultural, histórico y musical de los pueblos indígenas.
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Geoforum, 2020
This article provides an ethnographic exploration of democratic sovereignty in an indigenous Guar... more This article provides an ethnographic exploration of democratic sovereignty in an indigenous Guaraní settlement of Argentina's Gran Chaco. Focussing on legally instituted Indigenous Communities, it analyses political assemblies, elections, and bureaucracy as practices of self-government that mediate indigenous recognition and extend state authority. The article hones in on the social drama of a particular settlement to show how extractive engagements combine with recognition to generate new forms of conflict. As state entities and officials mediate between factions, institutionalisation advances, enfolding conflict and replicating state forms among local populations. This makes certain forms of political action legible, while rendering others opaque. In drawing attention to how indigenous leaders and state officials play on and utilise opacity and legibility to further their own agendas I show how democratic institutions are co-produced through everyday interactions. The article argues that procedural efforts to incorporate and recognise indigenous societies through communal forms have resulted in ambiguous forms of sovereignty. Shifting the emphasis away from multiculturalism to forms of institutionalisation highlights the overlaps between indigenous and national forms of sovereignty and draws attention to the fact that many of the key political relations that structure indigenous recognition partake in broader mechanisms of democratic rule.
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Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2020
This article explores how indigenous Guaraní settlements in the Argentine
Chaco engage with the o... more This article explores how indigenous Guaraní settlements in the Argentine
Chaco engage with the oil and gas industry. In response to the hydrocarbon
sector’s shifting and inconstant dynamics, unemployed Guaraní
populations have found innovative ways to make claims and mobilise for
employment. The article draws attention to the temporality of extraction
and to the accompanying rhythms of flexible employment. These
temporalities intersect with the localised histories of oil and gas production
in ways that augment contemporary experiences of marginality.
While emphasising the perspectives of mobilised Guaraní populations,
the article also describes the political difficulties that confront precarious
labour forces and extends the concept of precarity to highlight continuities
between the impermanence of employment and the instability of
mobilisation.
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Money from the Government in Latin America: Conditional Cash Transfer Programs and Rural Lives, 2018
Historically, Argentina’s indigenous populations have been marginalized from state projects of be... more Historically, Argentina’s indigenous populations have been marginalized from state projects of belonging. However, the advent of cash transfer programs has allowed them to benefit from one of the state’s most recent attempts to enfranchise the poor. Drawing on ethnographic research, this chapter shows that, although conditional cash transfer money has created unprecedented material opportunities for indigenous Guaraní households, the ways in which this money is collected, circulated and spent raises problematic issues concerning moral desert that become entangled with gendered notions and practices at the local level. While scholarship on distributive welfare has emphasized relationships between states and citizens, this chapter argues that cash transfers also have moral implications that impinge upon the development of local social relations.
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Dissertation
In Argentina, indigenous populations have been marginalised from the nation-state’s projects of e... more In Argentina, indigenous populations have been marginalised from the nation-state’s projects of enfranchisement even though their labour has often been in high demand. The Guaraní of the Argentine Gran Chaco are a case in point. Once highly involved in the extractive frontier economy of the region, they have had very little access to broader political projects of belonging. Over the last few years, however, this historical trend has been reversed. On the one hand, Guaraní settlements currently constitute a surplus population whose labour is no longer demanded by the regional economy. On the other, state-sponsored cash transfer programmes secure the subsistence of Guaraní families while multicultural legislation has sought to enfranchise them in new ways. At the local level, these simultaneous processes of inclusion and exclusion have created a series of tensions and contradictions that mark everyday life.
To investigate these processes, this thesis explores the various motivations, opportunities, and challenges that characterise the political and economic life of Guaraní settlements. It considers the gendered impacts of unemployment and welfare dependency at the settlement level and analyses the ways in which autonomy and dependency play out in local politics. This leads to an ethnographic exploration of factional conflict and to an appreciation of how people negotiate legal projects of institutionalisation. It is shown that practices of egalitarianism, hierarchy, autonomy, and representation are intertwined with ideas about gender, work, and plurality. The thesis argues that a concern with abundance lies at the heart of Guaraní life. Two subjunctive moments – an annual harvest celebration and the game of football – are explored as particular instances in which the Guaraní appear to attain such desirable states of abundance; at the same time, it is argued that these moments create a space of ‘illusion’ wherein the gendered ties of dependency and control that underpin abundance are fundamentally misrecognised. The thesis elaborates a theory of Amerindian political economy in which wageless life and abundance partially displace more classic themes of labour and scarcity. In doing so it provides new understandings of how collectivities are fashioned among subaltern populations, while highlighting how inclusion and exclusion are achieved and experienced in the everyday.
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Conference and Seminar Papers
Enthusiastically embraced by national governments and multilateral development institutions alike... more Enthusiastically embraced by national governments and multilateral development institutions alike, cash transfer programs are becoming an increasingly valuable - and transformational - resource for marginal households throughout the world. Drawing on ethnographic data collected over the course of long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores the ambiguous impact of cash transfer programmes on indigenous Guarani households in Argentina. It shows that cash transfer programmes that target mothers are treated as 'special money' due to the confluence of administrative and local notions regarding motherhood and women's labour. In a context where male unemployment is rampant, the feminisation of cash transfers payments has strengthened pre-existing gender roles but also transformed them and led to incipient changes in family structures. These changes include young men's unwillingness to recognise the paternity of children and an increase in multi-generational, all-female households. While these impacts seem circumscribed to the level of local household practices, it is suggested that cash transfers are increasingly central to local politics and have also affected people's experiences of citizenship and belonging. Drawing on feminist insights, this paper argues that cash transfers simultaneously challenge and reinforce notions of labour and households. As a result, if we are to understand their generativity and their potential to create dependency, cash transfers must also be understood within the context of local political economies.
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This paper explores the analytical usefulness of the term ‘complicity’ for understanding the live... more This paper explores the analytical usefulness of the term ‘complicity’ for understanding the lives of people who inhabit the margins of extractive economies. Drawing on the word’s etymology, which suggests both collusion and complexity, the paper provides an ethnographic exploration of complicity among the Guarani, an indigenous society of Argentina’s Gran Chaco. In Guarani settlements, the allure of highly-remunerated oil jobs has prompted young men to organise politically into what they call Unemployed Workers Centres. Drawing on a local history of (non-indigenous) worker mobilisation, the Centres confrontationally demand jobs from oil companies, but rarely have their demands met. In spite of this apparent failure, the Centres have transformed local politics. Strongly gendered and age-graded, the Centres provide a space for unemployed young men to productively challenge the authority of older leaders while disavowing the fundamental economic role of women. In concluding, the paper will suggest that paying attention to the social productivity of complicity sheds light on the kinds of novel social and political arrangements that even failed resource entanglements facilitate.
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A lo largo de las últimas décadas las comunidades guaraníes de la provincia argentina de Salta ha... more A lo largo de las últimas décadas las comunidades guaraníes de la provincia argentina de Salta han experimentado un proceso gradual de institucionalización burocrática. Al igual que en otras partes de América Latina, este proceso de institucionalización tiene sus orígenes en las políticas y las leyes que han sido impulsadas con el objetivo explícito de promover el multiculturalismo en el país. Dentro de un marco multicultural incipiente, el estado ha buscado garantizar la autonomía cultural e institucional de los pueblos originarios a través del otorgamiento de la personería jurídica a las comunidades indígenas. Este trabajo parte del análisis de datos etnográficos recolectados durante 15 meses de trabajo de campo e investiga cómo el otorgamiento de la personería jurídica tiene consecuencias paradójicas en la vida cotidiana de una comunidad Guaraní.
Los datos etnográficos demuestran que el proceso de reconocimiento legal y cultural ha supuesto una serie de oportunidades y desafíos. Por un lado el reconocimiento jurídico facilita la autonomía de las comunidades frente al estado; pero por el otro, la necesidad de legitimar la actividad política a través de una serie de técnicas burocráticas permite a los líderes guaraníes centralizar el poder dentro de sus comunidades. Haciendo hincapié en la cultura política guaraní, esta comunicación ilustra cómo la centralización del poder interno ha provocado fuertes divisiones en el seno de la comunidad. A su vez, se explica cómo estos mismos procesos de faccionalismo terminan socavando la legitimidad de las comunidades como personas jurídicas. El análisis concluye que los procesos de centralización y división simultáneos acaban por resquebrajar la autonomía que se buscaba alcanzar originalmente a través del reconocimiento de la personería jurídica y sugiere que ha llegado el momento de replantearse la forma en la que el estado reconoce a los pueblos originarios.
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This paper explores the ambiguous nature of waged labour in indigenous societies. Specifically, ... more This paper explores the ambiguous nature of waged labour in indigenous societies. Specifically, it analyses the extent to which the desire to be integrated into an alienating labour market both precludes and facilitates the achievement of autonomy among people who have been consistently dominated and marginalised. Drawing on data collected during fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork among the Guarani in the Argentine Chaco, the paper pays attention to the ways in which young men's participation in the regional labour market - and, in particular, their involvement as workers for multinational oil companies - affects the development of social relations within indigenous communities. The argument is based on the Guarani ethos of being 'without an owner' (iyambae), and argues that alienated labour potentially empowers young men to the detriment of elders and women. Through this analysis, the paper draws parallels between the Guarani's historical practices of warfare and contemporary practices of work to suggest that, in spite of obvious differences, both can be seen as gendered acts of consumptive production that affect the nature of politics on the ground. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the political importance of alienated labour has implications for the Guarani's broader attempts to achieve political autonomy under the Argentine state.
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Blog posts
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Thematic Week on allegralaboratory.net
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Book Reviews
Anthropology in Action, 2022
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Anthropology of Work Review, Jul 2013
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Climate Change
Economia Agraria Y Recursos Naturales, Jan 31, 2012
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Economía Agraria y …, Jan 1, 2011
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Articles and chapters
Chaco engage with the oil and gas industry. In response to the hydrocarbon
sector’s shifting and inconstant dynamics, unemployed Guaraní
populations have found innovative ways to make claims and mobilise for
employment. The article draws attention to the temporality of extraction
and to the accompanying rhythms of flexible employment. These
temporalities intersect with the localised histories of oil and gas production
in ways that augment contemporary experiences of marginality.
While emphasising the perspectives of mobilised Guaraní populations,
the article also describes the political difficulties that confront precarious
labour forces and extends the concept of precarity to highlight continuities
between the impermanence of employment and the instability of
mobilisation.
Dissertation
To investigate these processes, this thesis explores the various motivations, opportunities, and challenges that characterise the political and economic life of Guaraní settlements. It considers the gendered impacts of unemployment and welfare dependency at the settlement level and analyses the ways in which autonomy and dependency play out in local politics. This leads to an ethnographic exploration of factional conflict and to an appreciation of how people negotiate legal projects of institutionalisation. It is shown that practices of egalitarianism, hierarchy, autonomy, and representation are intertwined with ideas about gender, work, and plurality. The thesis argues that a concern with abundance lies at the heart of Guaraní life. Two subjunctive moments – an annual harvest celebration and the game of football – are explored as particular instances in which the Guaraní appear to attain such desirable states of abundance; at the same time, it is argued that these moments create a space of ‘illusion’ wherein the gendered ties of dependency and control that underpin abundance are fundamentally misrecognised. The thesis elaborates a theory of Amerindian political economy in which wageless life and abundance partially displace more classic themes of labour and scarcity. In doing so it provides new understandings of how collectivities are fashioned among subaltern populations, while highlighting how inclusion and exclusion are achieved and experienced in the everyday.
Conference and Seminar Papers
Los datos etnográficos demuestran que el proceso de reconocimiento legal y cultural ha supuesto una serie de oportunidades y desafíos. Por un lado el reconocimiento jurídico facilita la autonomía de las comunidades frente al estado; pero por el otro, la necesidad de legitimar la actividad política a través de una serie de técnicas burocráticas permite a los líderes guaraníes centralizar el poder dentro de sus comunidades. Haciendo hincapié en la cultura política guaraní, esta comunicación ilustra cómo la centralización del poder interno ha provocado fuertes divisiones en el seno de la comunidad. A su vez, se explica cómo estos mismos procesos de faccionalismo terminan socavando la legitimidad de las comunidades como personas jurídicas. El análisis concluye que los procesos de centralización y división simultáneos acaban por resquebrajar la autonomía que se buscaba alcanzar originalmente a través del reconocimiento de la personería jurídica y sugiere que ha llegado el momento de replantearse la forma en la que el estado reconoce a los pueblos originarios.
Blog posts
Book Reviews
Climate Change
Chaco engage with the oil and gas industry. In response to the hydrocarbon
sector’s shifting and inconstant dynamics, unemployed Guaraní
populations have found innovative ways to make claims and mobilise for
employment. The article draws attention to the temporality of extraction
and to the accompanying rhythms of flexible employment. These
temporalities intersect with the localised histories of oil and gas production
in ways that augment contemporary experiences of marginality.
While emphasising the perspectives of mobilised Guaraní populations,
the article also describes the political difficulties that confront precarious
labour forces and extends the concept of precarity to highlight continuities
between the impermanence of employment and the instability of
mobilisation.
To investigate these processes, this thesis explores the various motivations, opportunities, and challenges that characterise the political and economic life of Guaraní settlements. It considers the gendered impacts of unemployment and welfare dependency at the settlement level and analyses the ways in which autonomy and dependency play out in local politics. This leads to an ethnographic exploration of factional conflict and to an appreciation of how people negotiate legal projects of institutionalisation. It is shown that practices of egalitarianism, hierarchy, autonomy, and representation are intertwined with ideas about gender, work, and plurality. The thesis argues that a concern with abundance lies at the heart of Guaraní life. Two subjunctive moments – an annual harvest celebration and the game of football – are explored as particular instances in which the Guaraní appear to attain such desirable states of abundance; at the same time, it is argued that these moments create a space of ‘illusion’ wherein the gendered ties of dependency and control that underpin abundance are fundamentally misrecognised. The thesis elaborates a theory of Amerindian political economy in which wageless life and abundance partially displace more classic themes of labour and scarcity. In doing so it provides new understandings of how collectivities are fashioned among subaltern populations, while highlighting how inclusion and exclusion are achieved and experienced in the everyday.
Los datos etnográficos demuestran que el proceso de reconocimiento legal y cultural ha supuesto una serie de oportunidades y desafíos. Por un lado el reconocimiento jurídico facilita la autonomía de las comunidades frente al estado; pero por el otro, la necesidad de legitimar la actividad política a través de una serie de técnicas burocráticas permite a los líderes guaraníes centralizar el poder dentro de sus comunidades. Haciendo hincapié en la cultura política guaraní, esta comunicación ilustra cómo la centralización del poder interno ha provocado fuertes divisiones en el seno de la comunidad. A su vez, se explica cómo estos mismos procesos de faccionalismo terminan socavando la legitimidad de las comunidades como personas jurídicas. El análisis concluye que los procesos de centralización y división simultáneos acaban por resquebrajar la autonomía que se buscaba alcanzar originalmente a través del reconocimiento de la personería jurídica y sugiere que ha llegado el momento de replantearse la forma en la que el estado reconoce a los pueblos originarios.