Most residents of José Ingenieros begin the tale of their neighbourhood with the squatter invasion, or thetoma,as it is known locally. In the early days of the 1973 democratic period, thousands of predominantly shanty town dwellers took possession of the nearly empty housing. Often seen as the neighbourhood’s proudest moment, thetomaserves as a dramatic origin story particular to the community, but it also represents a point of contact with national history. Through thetoma,residents of José Ingenieros can see themselves as active participants in processes of national political importance. On prompting, they saw it as...

When we think of the last Argentine dictatorship, certain images come to mind: unmarked green Ford Falcons occupied by sinister plainclothed military men; the kerchiefed mothers of the disappeared walking in silent vigil around the Plaza de Mayo; the 1978 World Cup soccer tournament, perhaps, and the rumours of human rights violations that circulated throughout it; a pointless war in the South Atlantic. These images are accurate enough, but they are also partial. They fall short of describing the quality and character of life under the regime known as the Process of National Reorganization. The activities these pictures conjure up...

The initial phase of the new democratic period was very much about theproceso.Euphoria was manifest in the mass rallies preceding the elections: between one-and-a-half and three million ecstatic citizens attended the last two rallies in the capital (CISEA 1984:428). Some commentators have characterized the years after theprocesoprimarily in terms of the political consolidation of democracy. By the time I arrived in José Ingenieros in 1991, it was taken for granted (most of the time) that Argentina had, and would continue to have, a formal democracy. The condition of the economy represented a much more pressing concern....

Local historical knowledge in José Ingenieros is fragmented for the same reasons that social networks were disarticulated by recent events and processes. For many reasons, not least political, people in José Ingenieros seem to have rarely discussed the past among themselves. This fact poses a theoretical and methodological problem: how might one proceed to look at popular memory – that is a shared ‘common sense history’ (Popular Memory Group 1992) in Jose Ingenieros? For members ataller de memoria(history/memory workshop), one solution was to paint a mural. The mural, like the workshop that produced it, calls our attention to the...

In thetalkrespeople collectively thought through and worked out a local history. The workshop was an explicit attempt to remember collectively. How, why, and with what success this was done casts some light on the social production of memory in Jose Ingenieros. The choices members of thetalleresmade are telling: to put an optimistic spin on local history, and to leave theprocesoas a recognizable period out of the mural altogether. Such choices merit further consideration. In this chapter, we turn our attention to the significance of these kinds of choices, some of them very public, some...

The past is alive in José Ingenieros, even when it is neither discussed nor acknowledged. The shared experiences of the last three decades live on not only in the more obvious senses of what people have learned and what they know, but also in friendships and enmities, in confidence and mistrust. Gavin Smith (1991) has argued that community dialogue for the rebellious Peruvian peasants he worked with is often expressed in the language of contention: that the passion of disagreements often suggests the depth of people’s connection, of their sense that something very important is at stake. For the analyst...

By telling the story of Jose Ingenieros, relating how people there recount their history, and by considering the presence of the past in the neighbourhood, I have tried to examine how political-economic processes such as dictatorship and economic restructuring affect people and social life. This story matters because the people in José Ingenieros and working-class Argentines more generally matter – even though they are increasingly considered marginal to their country’s plans and prospects. This account also casts light on the nature of political, economic, and cultural processes with much wider effects.

The story of José Ingenieros also shows how culture is...