Urban resistance and its expression in public space: New demands and shared meanings in Argentina

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the main characteristics of the resistance, including how demands, identities, organizational modalities, and its ways of appropriation of the public space have remained consistent across the decades as seen in the present forms of organization and resistance. It chapter offers a historical view, going over the first implementation of neoliberal policies in Argentina, the context of a social, economic, and political crisis in 2001, and contemporary observations of the present urban resistance. The case of Argentinean protest history and the consequences of neoliberal implementations have given birth to a variety of demands and protests. The chapter demonstrates that the analysis centered on class struggle is pertinent because "being" a worker is still a central analytical category to understanding resistance displayed in the public space as the socially organized recapitulation of labor against the authority. Even though neoliberalism had modified social structure, it did not incur the cessation of demands based on inequalities between social classes.