Contentious Lives: Two Argentine Women, Two Protests, and the Quest for Recognition

Abstract

Contentious Lives links individual social performances with sociopolitical events by examining “the intersection of [two] episodes of popular protest with the life histories of . . . two women living in neglected regions of Argentina, paying particular attention to the ways [their] biographies shape their actions and words during the uprisings and the different effects that both episodes have had on their lives” (pp. 2-3). Although the author is a sociologist and this journal’s audience is primarily historians, as an anthropologist myself I hope to contribute to a broader reading of this work based upon ethnographic fieldwork. In my opinion, Auyero has done a great job and surpasses his own hopes to help readers “understand some dimensions of the lived experiences of two massive uprisings, some elements of the everyday life in contemporary Argentina, and their mutual imbrication” (p. 207). By reading Contentious Lives, I have learned about Argentina in a broad sense but also about life in two remotes provinces, one in the interior (Santiago de Estero) and another in Patagonia (Neuquén). The book gives a sense of what this remoteness means from a geographical, political, economic, and administrative perspective. I have learned about some dimensions of the lived experiences of the two uprisings and come to understand how the lives portrayed were shaped by the subjects’ social performances during the uprisings. I have had the opportunity to learn about battered lives in depressed economies, how gender plays a role in the scenario, why the quest for recognition expressed by the performances of the two women represented, among other things, a search for sense in their personal private lives, and how their individual participation contributed to shaping and giving meaning to collective events. Finally, I have learned about how protests entail a war of classifications, the use of labels, and contentious significances.Auyero’s book offers valuable insight into how individual lives matter, even when social scientists focus on collective actions. I usually expect such an individual perspective from good ethnography, and this book rises to that expectation. I only regret that the author apologizes too much for this perspective, as if the analysis of two individual common lives were insufficient to claim relevance. Auyero seems convinced of the value of fieldwork both for his academic analysis and his personal experience, and he has conducted his fieldwork skillfully. He also soundly questions the traditional manner in which ethnographic work has been conceived. But he still seems somewhat uncomfortable trying to reconcile singularity and representativeness at the same time. He tells the reader, for example, that Nana’s way “is emblematic” (p. 111), “a sort of living ideal” (p. 154), or that Nana and Laura “stand for something” (p. 203).I will suggest here two ways to handle this thorny issue. The first is to place the information garnered through fieldwork within the frame of social structure after a sociological in-depth analysis (which Auyero does, but only in a general way). The other way is just not to raise the question. If the knowledge generated through ethnographic fieldwork is just a fragmented and particular way to look at social collective events and at the people who participate in them, in my opinion this (as this work shows) in and of itself has value. For me, as for a broad number of fieldworkers, every life is significant enough to reward our academic efforts, and their singular meanings are what legitimize them.Perhaps Auyero will resolve this dilemma in some other way or will eventually become comfortable enough with it. In any case, I will look forward for his next work.