This article examines the actions that millions of new-poor Argentine citi- zens took when confronted with impoverishment during the country's economic crisis in 2002. Drawing on World Bank and Latinobarometro survey data, it explores how their distinct understandings of citizenship; their possession of human, social, physi- cal, cultural, and fi nancial capital; and aspects of their middle-class identity shaped the very specifi c forms of resistance that they adopted compared to the structural poor. It provides insights into why some citizens perceived their hardship as a political problem, formed collective grievances, and manifested their resistance through protest, while oth- ers located the causes of hardship in their own defi ciencies and tended to confi ne their responses to individual self-improvement strategies. It also fi nds that differences in per- sonal biographies, experiences of poverty, and the changing spaces available to protest infl uenced individuals' choice of action. One of the most sobering legacies of three decades of neoliberalism in Latin America has been the exposure of a signifi cant proportion of its middle class to vulnerability and impoverishment. Yet since the conceptualization of new pov- erty in the early 1990s, these studies have almost exclusively focused on how such citizens and households deal with dramatic declines in material well-being in terms of their private self-improvement responses to external shocks. Research has approached these "coping strategies" from an array of disciplinary perspec- tives including analyses of psychological (Masseroni and Sauane 2002), cultural and civic (Minujin 2008), and consumer-based responses (Zurawicki and Braidot 2005). Others have examined the comparative advantages in terms of gaining work or pursuing self-employment opportunities that the new poor enjoy over the structurally poor (the long-term impoverished who possess few resources and little political or social power) due to their prior accumulation of superior social and cultural capital (Feijoo 2003). Notable studies have identifi ed distinctive new- poor responses to government social policies (Aguirre 2008), and counterrational behaviors in seeking symbolic capital to preserve their class identity and loss of status (Kessler and Di Virgilio 2008; Ozarow 2008). Yet in this body of work, the political dimension of pauperization and how it is resisted by the middle class through collective behavior and protest actions (especially during periods of eco- My gratitude is due to Leandro Sepulveda, Richard Croucher, and Sarah Bradshaw for their assis- tance with this article; to Middlesex University Business School for funding this research; and to the three anonymous LARR reviewers for their helpful comments. All errors that remain are the author's responsibility.

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When All They Thought Was Solid Melted into Air: Resisting Pauperization in Argentina during the 2002 Crisis

This paper constitutes an analysis of the conditions of possibility and the pro- cesses that influenced in the emergence of the movement of unemployed in Argentina. In parti- cular one investigates, through a theoretical and empiric reconstruction, in the configuration of the collective subjectivity that has been constituted by the unemployed to give sense to the con- texts of sociability affected by deep reformations. The attention in the aspect of the collective sub- jectivity allows to investigate key environments in the appropriation of repertoires of collective action, the re-meaning of the historical memory in new organizations and, in definitive, an expe- rience for a sector of the working class in Argentina.

Los «piqueteros»: trabajo, subjetividad y acción colectiva en el movimiento de desocupados

The aim of this paper is to establish the main conceptual and methodological lines in order to carry out an investigation about levels and forms of citizen participation. This paper is the result of the formation of a Citizen Participation Index in Latin America in its 2005 edition. It was promoted by the Inter-American Network for Democracy and implemented by the Economic and Social Research Foundation.

CONSTRUCCIÓN DE CIUDADANÍA: EXPERIENCIA DE IMPLEMENTACIÓN DE UN ÍNDICE DE PARTICIPACIÓN CIUDADANA EN AMÉRICA LATINA Constructing Citizenship: experience from the Citizen Participation Index in Latin America

145 ARGUMENTOS UAM-X MÉXICO En el marco de la crisis del modelo hegemónico que trastocó las condiciones de sociabilidad de amplios sectores durante la década de 1990, en Argentina surgieron distintas experiencias de acción colectiva. Entre las más novedosas está la movilización de grupos de desocupados. Este artículo busca reconstruir analíticamente los elementos –especialmente ligados a las subjetividades– que hicieron posible la acción de los desempleados como respuesta a los cambios en la estructuración de las relaciones sociales. Asimismo, analiza las implicaciones del movimiento social y sus acciones para la interpelación del orden social de dominación. En particular, se subraya la relevancia de aspectos políticos (nuevas y viejas formas de representación de los trabajadores) y culturales (identidades y subjetividades colectivas), que junto con la apropiación de un repertorio de protesta, contribuyen a comprender el surgimiento de uno de los actores sociales particulares de la era neoliberal argentina: los “piqueteros”. La reconstrucción de los aspectos relacionados con la estructura, la subjetividad y la acción permitirá avanzar en la comprensión de las implicaciones del movimiento en la disputa por la conformación del orden social.

The movement of unemployed workers in Argentina: structural changes, subjectivity and collective action in the neoliberal social order

In Argentina, the disruptive effects of unemployment acquire particularly serious dimensions because of the context of disintegration of what was previously a relatively well established social and employment structure. This article examines the experience, meanings and perceptions of work and unemployment, with particular emphasis on their dynamic and heterogeneous nature. The article offers a critical review of the literature on unemployment and an analysis of the major transformations of the employment market from the 1980s on, before proceeding to demonstrate, through in–depth interviews, the concrete repercussions of these processes on “ordinary people”. It thus aims to provide an appreciation of unemployment from a broad perspective, and contribute to a reformulation of welfare politics with a comprehensive, overall vision.

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María Cristina Bayón

Papers

La erosión de las certezas previas: significados, percepciones e impactos del desempleo en la experiencia argentina