Criollo Entrepreneurialism: Transforming racial and class identities and social mobility among mixed-race Argentines Pubblico
Kauko, Sara (Spring 2020)
Abstract
This dissertation examines how mixed-race people, i.e. criollos, aspire for and experience social mobility in Santiago del Estero, Argentina’s north-western interior. Historically, social mobility among criollos has been made difficult by the sociocultural imaginaries that conceive of Argentina as a white, middle-class country. Criollos have traditionally inhabited the society’s margins, where their role has been to represent Argentina’s folklore, or simply, to be the country’s ‘inconvenient other.’ While such race-class hierarchies persist in Argentina, today, criollos are gradually able to challenge them.
I argue that entrepreneurialism offers criollos new avenues to achieve this. Both as practice and as an attitude, entrepreneurialism is a socially sanctioned and encouraged way of being. In the Argentine public and political discourse, it is also celebrated as an Argentine way of being. To be an entrepreneur implies being a productive, contributing, and ‘legitimate’ member of the society. If historically, criollos’ skin color and geographical and cultural roots have kept them on the bottom of class-race hierarchies, being –and self-identifying as– an entrepreneur today helps them improve their socioeconomic position and aspire for a ‘middle-class lifestyle.’
By focusing on “criollo entrepreneurialism,” this dissertation contributes to research on social transformations in terms of social mobility and race, and their contentious relationship. Entrepreneurialism as an analytical lens helps to expand and advance that field. It allows for a simultaneous analysis on both race and class as dynamic and fluid, mutually constitutive social constructs. Further, my research also aims to push the geographical frontier of class and race-related research in Argentina, where anthropological inquiries on class tend to focus on the urban and economic centers –not the country’s poor hinterlands.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
I: Introducing the field
Santiago’s different sides
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
II: Economic and political context
The boom
The crisis before the boom
Corralito in Santiago
Consumer citizen; aspiring middle-class citizen
Entrepreneurial citizen
III: Chapter contents, research design and methods
Ethnographic sites in chapters
Chapter 1: “Legitimacy contested: Criollo entrepreneurs and the white middle-class”
Chapter 2: “Forms of capital and the ‘entrepreneurial framework’ of race, class, and status”
Chapter 3: “Body work and social capital among triathletes”
Chapter 4: “Between aspirations and progress: entrepreneurialism in a women’s cooperative”
Chapter 5: “Cultural capital, status, and legitimacy: mixed-race Santiagueños in higher education”
Methods
Beyond the methods
Chapter 1: Legitimacy contested: criollo entrepreneurs and the white middle-class
Chapter structure
The origins of the project
Criollo and the Argentine criollo
Authenticity contested: the case of Upianita
White, prosperous Argentina
The marginalized racial other and the making of the middle-class Argentina
Origin narratives: mythical facts and alternative stories
Entrepreneurial empowerment and claims to legitimacy
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Forms of capital and the ‘entrepreneurial framework’ of race, class, and status
Introduction
Chapter structure
I: On Bourdieu: where class and status meet and merge
II: Social space and capital
Social capital
Cultural capital
III: Aspirational social mobility and the quest to middle-classness
IV: Race, ethnicity, and the parameters of whiteness
V: Race to socioeconomic mobility
VI: Entrepreneurialism and the neoliberal way of the world
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Body work and social capital among triathletes
Introduction
Meeting Mario and arriving in Ironsport
Ironsport: a site for revolution
A gym, a track, and a coffee place
The ‘sporting field’
The interactive sporting field
“You’re not a model; you’re an athlete!”
Under surveillance; under construction
Discipline and approval
Entrepreneurial athletes
The lifestyle entrepreneur
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Between aspirations and progress: entrepreneurialism in a women’s cooperative
Introduction
Chapter structure
Arriving in the Cooperativa Integral de Santiago del Estero
Institutional context
Cooperative entrepreneurialism in times of neoliberalism
Entrepreneurial identity: from an informal worker to an entrepreneur in a gendered ‘laborscape’
The cooperative as a platform for mobility and progress
Gendered entrepreneurialism
Chapter 5: Cultural capital, status, and legitimacy: mixed-race Santiagueños in higher education
Introduction
Chapter structure
Laboratorio de Antropología, Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero
The university is for everybody. In Argentina, everybody is white
Democratizing education; perpetuating socioeconomic inequality
University, militancy, and legitimacy: the case of Jorge
University, legitimacy, identity: the case of Fátima
Capitalizing on education: the case of Matías
Conclusion
Conclusion
Part I: The ‘what?’
Part II: The ‘so what?’
Part III: The ‘how?’
Part IIII: Final thoughts
Bibliography
About this Dissertation
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