Contentious Lives: Two Argentine Women, Two Protests, and the Quest for Recognition (Latin America Otherwise) [Paperback]

Javier Auyero (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0822331152 | ISBN-13: 978-0822331155 | Publication Date: April 9, 2003

Contentious Lives examines the ways popular protests are experienced and remembered, individually and collectively, by those who participate in them. Javier Auyero focuses on the roles of two young women, Nana and Laura, in uprisings in Argentina (the two-day protest in the northwestern city of Santiago del Estero in 1993 and the six-day road blockade in the southern oil towns of Cutral-co and Plaza Huincul in 1996) and the roles of the protests in their lives. Laura was the spokesperson of the picketers in Cutral-co and Plaza Huincul; Nana was an activist in the 1993 protests. In addition to exploring the effects of these episodes on their lives, Auyero considers how each woman's experiences shaped what she said and did during the uprisings, and later, the ways she recalled the events. While the protests were responses to the consequences of political corruption and structural adjustment policies, they were also, as Nana’s and Laura’s stories reveal, quests for recognition, respect, and dignity.

Auyero reconstructs Nana’s and Laura’s biographies through oral histories and diaries. Drawing on interviews with many other protesters, newspaper articles, judicial records, government reports, and video footage, he provides sociological and historical context for their stories. The women’s accounts reveal the frustrations of lives overwhelmed by gender domination, the deprivations brought about by hyper-unemployment and the withering of the welfare component of the state, and the achievements and costs of collective action. Balancing attention to large-scale political and economic processes with acknowledgment of the plurality of meanings emanating from personal experiences, Contentious Lives is an insightful, penetrating, and timely contribution to discussions of popular resistance and the combined effects of globalization, neoliberal economic policies, and political corruption in Argentina and elsewhere.

Editorial Reviews

Review

”Contentious Lives dares to present the lives of two women who lived hard times but at a certain moment plunged into popular movements and then had to bear the consequences of their participation, to make sense of what they had done, and to fashion new relations with other people. The two women have entrusted Javier Auyero with stories few others would want to see in print: stories of suffering, indiscretion, indecision, bitterness, regret, and passion.”—Charles Tilly, Columbia University

”Javier Auyero proves that you can go home again—and that with the proper experience elsewhere you can see more than you would have noticed if you had never left. Returning to his native Argentina as a sympathetic, well trained observer of political conflict, he shows us how intense personal lives and passionate political participation connect with each other. Auyero tells stories of Argentinian political and economic crises from an entirely fresh perspective.”—Viviana Zelizer, Princeton University

About the Author

Javier Auyero is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the author of Poor People's Politics: Peronist Survival Networks and the Legacy of Evita (Duke University Press), winner of the 2001 Best Book award from the New England Council of Latin American Studies (neclas) and a finalist for the C. Wright Mills Award.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (April 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822331152
• ISBN-13: 978-0822331155
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #511,959 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A model of engaged ethnography, April 17, 2003

By 

Erin Blacksmith (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Contentious Lives: Two Argentine Women, Two Protests, and the Quest for Recognition (Latin America Otherwise) (Paperback)

Read this book, Auyero did it again. A wonderful and inspiring exercise of political ethnography, this book combines attention to biographical details, protest dynamics, and structural transformations in a stunningly well-written account. Hard to put it down.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating look into the people behind collective action, December 18, 2004

By 

Kenji Fujishima (East Brunswick, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Contentious Lives: Two Argentine Women, Two Protests, and the Quest for Recognition (Latin America Otherwise) (Paperback)

I had to read CONTENTIOUS LIVES for a Sociology class I took recently, and, I must say, this book was a lot better than I had anticipated. What sociologist Javier Auyero has done is to try to focus on the human stories that go into collective action---in this case, two protests that took place in Argentina during two different times in the 1990s. Most of the time sociologists consider these riots in terms of group action, of what societal factors might have spurred a whole group into getting together and causing a riot or something. In fact, that is the kind of detached perspective that led Auyero to travel to Argentina in the first place. As he explains in an Epilogue, though, he met its two main characters, Laura and Nana, by chance, and it was then that the goal of his field research changed. His book focuses on the two women, digs deep into their personal histories, and tries to use these histories to explain what may have inspired these otherwise ordinary women to get involved in extraordinary actions.

The result of all this research is a book that is not only often fascinating (and quite readable), but, in a way, kind of uplifting too. These two women came from unfortunate pasts filled with disappointments (particularly with relationships), but their involvement in collective action was able to confer on them a considerable measure of dignity and respect, not only from others but for themselves. Even if history---or at least, government-engineered history---relegates the two incidents profiled in this book to oblivion, the people involved in it will certainly never forget it. In their own hearts, at least, they made a difference; and Auyero, through this terrific book, honors their achievements, as well as the achievements of all who have felt the need to get involved in political collective action. Highly recommended.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars disappointing, April 18, 2011

By 

emma - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Contentious Lives: Two Argentine Women, Two Protests, and the Quest for Recognition (Latin America Otherwise) (Paperback)

arrived in time, but in a very bad condition. the book was desecribed as "used-good" but in fact it was not acceptable, the cover is damaged and marked by a chewing-gum. really disappointed