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Whittier College

Publication Date

Fall 2016

Program Name

Argentina: Social Movements and Human Rights

Abstract

In the late 1990s in Argentina, the model of neoliberalism transformed political and economic policies, aggravated free trade and promoted the privatization of companies and free enterprise. A direct consequence was job instability, with masses amounts of unemployment prevailing, and no action nor response pursued by the state. As a result, the unemployed workers “desocupdos” came together and introduced new repertoires of action: the picketing “piquetes” and the temporary blockage of roads “corte de rutas”. The movement’s first appearance was in the Cutral-Có y Plaza Huincul in the Province of Neuquén (1996-97), extended to Salta and Jujuy (1997) and then arrived to the neighborhoods in Buenos Aires (1997).

The piquetero movement that emerged constituted a successful popular movement with an effort to mobilize the desocupados; it generated spaces of resistance, visibility in the public space and throughout time, new organizations came to the fore. In 2006, Frente de Organizaciones en Lucha (FOL) was formed.

In this investigation, I will focus on the piquetero movement that emerged in response to the neoliberal policies of President Carlos Menem (1989-1999). In part, I seek to recover the different narratives of women from the Frente de Organizaciones en Lucha (FOL) in Claypole by using their testimonials of personal experiences to answer the key question: how do the mujeres piqueteras of FOL construct an identity of protagonist within the social movement? And lastly, I intend to develop analyses on how patriarchy, and neoliberalism continue to normalize women as unrecognizable and inferior. By focusing on

Disciplines

Community-Based Learning | Community-Based Research | Economics | Family, Life Course, and Society | Income Distribution | Inequality and Stratification | Labor Economics | Latin American Studies | Work, Economy and Organizations

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