Neighbor Assemblies and the Politics of Poverty in Argentina

Mónica Farías, University of Washington 

My research focuses on the relationship between socioeconomic crisis, middle-class identities and poverty politics in Argentina over the last fifteen years. I am currently conducting fieldwork for my dissertation, which examines neighborhood-popular assemblies that emerged in Buenos Aires in response to the economic crisis of 2001-02. I am interested in whether the assemblies are spaces where people encounter those from different socioeconomic and political backgrounds and how these ‘encounters’ might work to challenge class and political identities as well as values, norms and representations of poverty. For my work I draw on critical poverty studies, geographies of encounter, urban citizenship and new social movements.

Contact: fariasm@uw.edu