Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 22, No.

4, 1999

Re-Membering Peronism: An Ethnographic

Account of the Relational Character
of Political Memory
Javier Auyero

"When we say 'politics of memory,' how many of us really mean that memory could
constitute a politics? We aren't thinking of memory as some autonomous force that in and
of itself dictates a political situation. We aren't even really thinking of memory as a distinct
sphere of our daily lives that has its own political discourse, analogous to 'the politics of
housework' or 'the politics of labor.' Most of us, I submit, are really referring to rhetoric
about the past mobilized for political purposes. Is it possible for us to think otherwise,
as cultural actors evidently do, and conceive of 'past' events being truly effective in the
presentconceive of them, that is, as not really past?" Jonathan Boyarin
"The Peron era saw the formation of a dominant working-class tradition and a profound recasting of the historical memory of Argentine workers. Their experience of the post1955 era was to be framed within the parameters established by this memory and
tradition." Daniel James

Maria is a 54 year-old woman who lives in a slum in the outskirts of Buenos

Aires, Argentina. Since she is unemployed, and her husband works "off the books,"
she does not have any health insurance. "I didn't have money to buy the eyeglasses
that the doctor [in the public hospital] prescribed for me. A neighbor suggested
that I go to the Unidad Bdsica [grassroots office of the Peronist Party, literally base
units, hereafter UB].... This neighbor told me that there, at the UB, I should look
for Juan Pisutti [local political broker]. Pisutti would tell me whether I can get the
eyeglasses or not." Happily showing me her new eyeglasses, Maria told me that
"it was through Pisutti that I got them." When the soup-kitchen opened in the UB,
Pisutti called Maria to join the activities in his UB. During the most recent recorded
session of her life story, she reported this invitation in the following words: "While
I use these eyeglasses, I have to be grateful to you, because I obtained them through
you...." Maria usually participates in Peronist public rallies and internal elections:
"I have to fulfill my obligation to him [Pisutti]. If my presence is useful to him,
I'll go there... It is my form of saying 'thank you.'"
Direct correspondene to Javier Auyero, Sociology Department, State University of New York at Stony
Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4356 (Auyero@aol.com).

331
1999 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

332

Auyero

During the many hours we spent talking about her life in the slum, Maria
described a set of recollections and told them over and over again in great detail.
There were those that referred to her life under the first Peronist government (19461955). "I clearly remembered when I was a little girl, and we got a parcel through
the mail. It was a big box ...there was my first pair of eyeglasses!!! Evita [Eva
Per6n] sent them to me. In the parcel there were also school aprons... We, in
my family, have good recollections of Evita. She gave us the bonus in the Mundo
Infantil magazine so that we could go to the post office and get our toys, a pink
bonus if you were a girl, and a light blue bonus if you were a boy. They [Juan
and Eva Per6n] distributed a bag of toys. Every kid was able to celebrate Three
Wise Men. And for Christmas, you had your panettone and your cider . . . I was ten
years old."
Maria's life story was an important part of an eight-month long field research
project I carried out in the slum of Villa Paraiso, one of the oldest, largest, and
poorest slums in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.1 Whiledoing fieldwork,2
I was only superficially familiar with the literature of the new and burgeoning field
of the sociology of collective memory. At the time, Maria's recollections caught my
attention as a crystal-clear example of Halbwach's dictum, "If what we currently
see fits into the framework of our old memories, the converse is also true, for
these memories adapt to the mass of present perceptions (Halbwachs 1980:22, my
italics)." Many events in Maria's life remain obscure to her, but the memories of
the "happy times of Peronism" are very vivid. She remembers all the particular
details of the presents bestowed by the Peronist government. She remembers, I
will argue in this paper, because her old experiences of Peronism are, to quote
Mary Douglas (1980:5), renewed "by means of external stimuli" and adapted to
her present perceptions. With the necessary caveats I will explore throughout this
paper, we could say that the eyeglasses Maria obtained through Pissuti are the
lenses through which she sees contemporary Peronism.
It was only after coming back from the field that, while trying to make sense
of this piece of Maria's story, I learned about Zerubavel's notion of "mnemonic
lenses," Nora's "lieux de memoire," Schwartz's emphasis on the structuring character of commemoration, and Boyarin's and Tilly's emphases on the politics of
memory. Taking heed of these authors' conceptual contributions and critically
translating their methodological principles, this essay draws on ethnographic data
to explore the relational, structured, and structuring character of the memories of
Peronism among the urban poor in Argentina.
"Inutil repetirme" wrote Jorge Luis Borges in Historia de la Noche, "que el
recuerdo de ayeryun sueno son la misma cosa": It is pointless to repeat to myself
that the remembrance of yesterday and a dream are the same thing. In another
poem in that same book, he wrote, "I will be my dream." Past, present, and future are always articulated in complex forms in Borges' writings, as much as they
are in the lives of Boyarin's (1994) cultural actors. Past events are truly effective

Re-Membering Peronism

333

in the present and in the way we imaginewe dream aboutour future. Walter
Benjamin, Franz Fanon, and Michel DeCerteau also emphasized this "presentist"
character of the past: "For every image of the past that is not recognized by the
present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably," wrote
Benjamin in his Theses on the Philosophy of History. Fanon, in turn, noted the
problematic and contested character of knowledge about the past, contending that
colonization could even permeate the subordinated people's past, thereby becoming a key component of the process of social domination. DeCerteau (1997:129)
argued that current lived experiences and projects are made, in part, from sedimentations of the past: "Both the future and the present depend on the archeology
of gestures, objects, words, images, forms, and symbols, a repertory with many
entrances from which is composed a landscape of communication and are invented
the propositions of innovation."
Recent developments in sociology of memory further emphasize the blurred
lines between past and present. Just as Durkheim discarded the idea of the lonely
suicidal individual, the sociology of memory, in exploring the social aspects of the
mental act of remembering, rejects the existence of "mnemonic Robinson Crusoes
(Zerubavel 1996:285)." Memory is "a perpetually actual phenomenon," writes
Pierre Nora, "a bond tying us to the eternal present (Nora 1989:9)." Present and
past were also mutually implicated in the writings of someone we can now consider the founding father of the sociology of memory, Maurice Halbwachs. "When
we return to a city previously visited," Halbwachs (1980:22) says that "what we
perceive helps us to restore a picture, certain portions of which had been forgotten" (for a similar argument see Passerini 1987). Following the lead of Benjamin,
Halbwachs (but contesting the sharp division he makes between memory and history), and Mead (1929, see also Maines et al. 1983), Barry Schwartz asserts that
collective memory vanishes when it ceases to be relevant to current experience.
Collective memory, "the way ordinary people conceive the past, reflects the concerns of the present (Schwartz 1997:470)." Thus, as George H. Mead believed long
ago, the past would not be invoked if there were no present problems to address
and if the understanding of the past were not relevant to these problems. In short,
"the present makes the past possible" (Maines et al. 1983:163).
It is common knowledge now that our memory of the past is affected by our
present social environment. Scholars highlight this structured character of past
recollections: The "relational setting" (Somers and Gibson 1994; Somers 1994) in
which actors are located affects the depth, tone, and the very facts of their memories
(Zerubavel 1996). Zerubavel argues that we remember as members of "mnemonic
communities." Memory is, thus, understood as socially and intersubjectively structured (Douglas 1980; Passerini 1987; Boyarin 1994). Memory also has a politics
(Tilly 1994; Barthel 1996; Hobsbawm 1983). According to Tilly the the politics of
memory refers to "(a) the process by which accumulated, shared historical experience constrains today's political action and (b) the contestation or coercion that

334

Auyero

occurs over the proper interpretation of that historical experience (Tilly 1994:247)."
Tilly not only insists on the structured character of political memories but also
points out their structuring capabilities: "an observerhistorian, ethnographer, or
fellow citizencannot account for the shared interests on which people will act
without investigating what mnemonic and moral frames they actually had available (Tilly 1994:244)." The "dead seizes the living," as Bourdieu contends, and
structures, as in Tilly's analysis, the way in which people engage in collective
action.
This structuring character of collective memory has also been noted by
Halbwachs. In Durkheimian fashion, he points out that a shared identity is maintained through the act of remembering. If remembering structures social groups,
remembering actually "re-members." In reshaping (and reinventing) memories,
members of a group create boundaries and ties among themselves. Barry Schwartz's
analysis (1996a; 1997) of commemorative symbolism has contributed much to our
thinking about the structuring capacities of memory. According to him, the contrast between memory and history formulated by Halbwachs (and Nora) is not so
clear cut. Collective memory is "a representation of the past embodied in both
commemorative symbolism and historical evidence (1997:471)." His analysis of
Lincoln's changing images among Afro-Americans shows that commemoration
"adds to history," affecting the way in which we imagine the past. Commemoration
is, thus, "a structuring process that partially overrides the qualities of its objects
and imposes upon them its own pattern (Schwartz 1997:489, my italics)."
This article can be seen as an attempt to build upon these recent developments
in the domain of the sociology of memory. At the same time, it provides a more finegrained analysis of the structuring and relational character of collective memories.
Specifically, I examine a) the way in which memories of Peronism vary according
to the relational setting in which actors in the slum are located; and b) the role of
a certain kind of memory in legitimating current social arrangements.
To begin, I provide some general background information on Peronism and
its centrality in Argentine politics. Although Peronism is probably the most widely
studied Argentine socio-political phenomenon (both by native and foreign scholars), knowledge of the memory of Peronism continues to be based more on popular
imagery than on the foundation of serious research and evidence.3 The second part
of the paper attempts to address this deficit by answering the question: What do
Peronist slum-dwellers remember about Peronism? What do they remember about
the role of Peronism in the history of the slum? They remember, I argue, different
things. People in the slum tell different (and sometimes contradictory) stories about
the history of the slum and of Peronism. The third part of this paper explains the
sources of these different memories and stories by embedding them in a relational
matrix. After examining the structured character of slum-dwellers' memories, I
offer an hypothesis concerning the role of these memories in legitimating the workings of clientelist networks. To foreshadow, I argue that Mariaand many more

Re-Membering Peronism

335

in her positionremembers Peronism and local history through the "mnemonic

lenses" provided by her benefactor, the local political broker Juan Pisutti. In doing
so, she fails to see the arbitrary character of her benefactor's position. In fact,
I argue, she misrecognizes the relationship that ties her to Juan, as "client" and
broker.4 She fails to understand clientelist relations as an exercise of power (rather
than as caring favors). This misrecognition lies at the heart of the legitimacy of
the benefactor's current position (as a political broker) and the very existence of
the clientelist network in the slum. In short, this paper shows that the memories
of Peronism are structured by the social environment in which actors are located
and also structure present social arrangements.
Monuments, historic sites, memorials, commemoration rites, and theater performances have been studied as objects of collective memory and as mechanisms
by which memory is transmittedor, in Barthel's felicitous formulation, as places
that "anchor collective memories by providing tangible evidence of the past"
(Barthel 1996:345; see also, Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz 1991; Taylor 1997).
This paper expands on these ideas by focusing on: a) specific living individuals
who, through their practices, evoke memories of a previous political regime and
a popular leader, and b) social networks which work, as Schwartz (1997:908)
observes in his study of the representation of Lincoln during World War II, as
"repositories of memory." At a more theoretical level, this paper illustrates the "recursive relation" (Giddens 1984) between social relations, memory, and politics.

WHAT BEING A PERONIST ONCE MEANT

"If one distinct strain identifies Argentine social sciences," writes Elizabeth
Jelin (1997:302) "it is the analysis and interpretation of Peronism." Understandably
so, Peronism has been firmly entrenched in Argentine society "both organizationally and as a political identity (Levitsky 1998a:80)" for more than fifty years.
Having been one of the most influential political forces in modern Latin American
history, Peronism is the largest party in contemporary Argentina. It was created
in the 1940s as a mass-based working- and lower-class movement of support for
Juan Domingo Per6n and "has survived decades of proscription and repression, as
well as the death of its charismatic founder in 1974 (Levitsky 1998a:82)."
This political and social movement that erupted in Argentina of the mid- 1940s
promoted as one of its constitutive elements the belief in the essential virtue of
the people (James 1988). By being associated with higher wages, the generalization of a system of collective bargaining, greater levels of unionization, and better
living conditions for the working-classes and the poor, Peronism alsoand more
fundamentallycomprised a "political vision which entailed an expanded notion
of the meaning of citizenship" and a "heretical social component which spoke to
working-class claims to greater social status, dignity within the workplace and

336

Auyero

beyond, and a denial of the elite's social and cultural pretensions (James 1988:
263)." Decency, pride, and self-esteem were central to the meaning(s) of Peronism
for the popular sectors. Peronism became a truly "heretical power"5 because its
moral economy had as a central tenet an affirmation of workers' rights within society and the workplace, and a collective claim for equality and dignity ready to call
in question certain social and cultural hierarchies. In short, Peronism expressed
a "diffuse social challenge to accepted forms of social hierarchy and symbols of
authority (James 1988:32)," and "remained in a fundamental way, a potentially
heretical voice, giving expression to the hopes of the oppressed both within the
factory and beyond, as a claim for social dignity and equality (James 1988:39)."
Among those uncontested forms of social hierarchy and authority was a traditional way of doing politics, dominated by fraud and clientelism, that had characterized much of Argentine politics since the turn of the century. The political
machines of Radicals and Conservatives, their reliance on local political bosses,
the Conservatives' widespread use of fraud, and the Radicals'use of state jobs for
the construction of its bases of electoral support are all well-documented aspects of
political clientelism in urban settings in early twentieth century Argentina (Rock
1975, 1972; Walter 1985). The techniques used by Conservatives and Radicals to
build political support were said to be based upon "the distribution to individuals
of concrete rewards, such as bureaucratic offices, charity donations and petty personal privileges (Rock 1972:233)." Although Conservative or Radical clientelism
never existed as the sole system for mobilizing political loyalties, the urban political boss (known as caudillo de barrio or compadre) became a pervasive figure
in urban politics during the first four decades of the twentieth century. As Rock
asserts,
In return for a biennial vote, the caudillo de barrio performed a multitude of petty favors for
his constituents, of a kind which won him and his party a not wholly-undeserved popularity
within the barrio. By guaranteeing his supporters immunity from the police for their petty
transgressions, by organizing local charity services, and by acting as the occasional dispenser
of providential loans, the ward boss acted as an intermediary between the individual and
the oppressive tentacles of officialdom, and became, with the Union and the Church, a main
agent for relief against almost any kind of unforeseen calamity. It was he also who provided
the most effective link between the Government, the upper echelons of the Party and the
electorate, greatly facilitating the important task of giving both an attractive human face
(Rock 1972:247).

These paternalistic measures were said to be effective in breaking down group

solidarity and in "atomizing the electorate and individualizing the voter (Rock
1975:79)."6 At the center of the Peronist heretical voice was an uncompromising
challenge to this machine-like character of politics.
Peronism... premised its political appeal to workers on a recognition of the working class as
a distinct social force which demanded recognition and representation as such in the political
life of the nation. This representation would no longer be achieved simply through the
exercise of formal rights of citizenship and the primary mediation of political parties. Instead,

Re-Memberlng Peronism

337

the working class as an autonomous social force would have direct, indeed privileged access,
to the state through its trade unions (James 1988:18).

Per6n addressed the workers as a "social force whose own organization and
strength were vital if he (Peron) were to be successful at the level of the state in
asserting their rights (James 1988:18)." This is not to deny the caudillistic elements
within Peronism. Yet, I want to stress the point made by James that "this personalist
element was not present entirely at the expense of a continued affirmation of
the social and organizational strength of the working class (James 1988:19)." In
all their ambiguity, Peronist ideological tenets (its nationalism and corporatism,
its emphasis on class harmony, on the ubiquitous role of the leader and on the
overwhelming presence of the paternalist state) did not preclude the "possibility
of working-class resistance and the emergence of a strong oppositional culture
among workers (James 1988:262)." This oppositional culture was the foundation
for "the rank-and-file resistance to the post-1955 regimes and [became] the basis
for the reassertion of Peronism as the dominant force within the Argentine workers'
movement (James 1988:40)."
Many analysts agree that current neo-liberal policies carried out by a government that identifies itself as Peronist (President Menem took office in 1989
and was reelected for a second term in 1995) efface all that is left of populist
Peronism. According to Adelman's analysischaracteristically entitled 'The funeral of populism"the current Peronist government has brought "the country full
circlereopening the class nature of the Argentine state which Per6n had sought to
elide with a populist alliance... If Peronism and populism aimed to obscure class
rule by absorbing contradictory interests of civil society within the ambit of the
state, menemismo [as President Menem's version of Peronism is known] expunges
this legacy [T]he current design leaves little doubts about the allegiances of
state power (Adelman 1994:91)."
This death of Peronism is not a new idea in Argentine politics. When Per6n
was ousted from power by the military in 1955, Peronism was also believed to
be dead. Even so, unionsPeronism's backbone and the main mobilizers of the
Peronist massesgave birth to the "Peronist Resistance," and the eventual return
of Per6n in 1973, after eighteen years of exile where he retained much of his labor
support and a great influence in Argentine politics.7 A year later Perdn died and
Peronism was again thought to be defunct. The death of Per6n, the calamitous
experience of (his third wife) Isabel Per6n's government (1974-1976), and the
military terror of the dirty war with its systematic repression of unions and popular
organizations (1977-1983) were harsh enough to destroy all traces of the populist
heresy. Banned and repressed by the military government, the Peronist Party defied
all beliefs about its demise by returning to power in 1989. Menemismo does not
signifyas many seem to believeanother death of Peronism but a third phase of
life of a party that remains resilient. As Jelin puts it, "Peronism transformed itself

338

Auyero

but continued as the single most important political force in the country (Jelin
1997:302)."
The political positions of Peronism (mainly a defense of the greater role for the
State as the guarantor of social justice) were surreptitiously abandoned by Menem
(Sidicarol995; Boron 1995). As Levitsky asserts (1996a:l), "[historically one
of the region's most powerful labor-based movements, Peronism had long been
a staunch opponent of liberal economic policies. Nevertheless, since 1989, the
Peronist government of Carlos Menem has successfully implemented a neo-liberal
program that clashes with both party tradition and the interests of the party's trade
union allies." With respect to labor and unions, Menem's neo-liberal shift entailed,
among other things, bans on wage increases not linked to productivity and on strikes
in much of the public sector, encouragement of firm-level collective bargaining, and
flexibility of shop floor labor relations. Through its resolute adoption of neo-liberal
structural-adjustment policies, the Peronist government is dismantling the semiwelfare state. As Sidicaro (1995) summarizes, Peronism ceased to be the party
of "social equality"; after 1989 it has changed "from a populist party dominated
by trade unions into the country's most important market-oriented party (Levitsky
1996a: 1)." In organizational terms, the party has also mutated "from a union-based
party into something resembling an urban machine (1996a:21)." In other words,
the Peronist Party went through a process of "de-unionization" (Levitsky 1998a,
see also Gutierrez 1998), a process that should be clearly distinguished from that
of "de-massification." As Levitsky clearly summarizes,
[T]he party's linkages to the mass base were transformed, as corporatist, union-based linkages to the party's urban base were replaced by territorial, patronage-based linkages
Rather than an electoral-professional or catch-all party, then, (the Peronist Party) transformed into a mass, increasingly patronage-based, "party of the poor." Such a party organizational structure is a far better fit with an urban base characterized by high unemployment,
informal sector employment, and social segmentation.

MEMORIES
'This is a very Peronist slum," the local Catholic priest told me. "Villa Paraiso
is a stronghold of the Peronist Party," a state official (gladly) admitted. During electoral times, key components of Peronist propaganda in the slum invites residents to
"keep the memory alive"8 when voting. In more than one sense, this call has been
heeded: the appeal of Peronism in the slum remains strong. In last presidential
elections of May 1995, nearly 60% of the slum population of Villa Paraiso voted
for Menem and the Peronist party.9 And the majority of poor slum-dwellers of
Villa Paraiso voted for Peronism in the parliamentary elections of 1997 even as
the Peronist Party suffered its first electoral defeat in ten years.
Despite the well-deserved attention and heated controversy surrounding Peronism in contemporary Argentina,10 there are few works that deal specifically
with the memory of Peronism among its main supporters, the working classes and
the poor (Nun 1993; James 1988; Rubinich 1992). Electoral surveys consistently

Re-Membering Peronism

339

show that the majority of poor people are "loyal to Peronism." Often, however,
the power of such images obscures the different meanings that Peronism has for
those hard-core supporters. In the analysis below, I concentrate on these different
meanings by exploring the distinct memories Peronist slum-dwellers have of what
they call "the great Peronist times," and of the role the Peronist Party (personified in local leaders) fulfilled in the history of the slum. Few residents remember
Peronism as the "heretical experience," analyzed by James. Few judge the current
Peronist experience according to those standards. Others recall Peronism as an
epoch in which "a lot of goods were distributed." In ideal-typical terms, there is
not one but two types of memory of Peronism. One memory narrates the history of
Peronism in terms of social justice and working-class dignity (I call this version,
the social justice memory); another memory re-tells the history of Peronism in
terms of "what we got from the government" (the distributionist memory). These
different Peronist memories dovetail with two different memories of the history
of the slum. On the one hand, those who remember Peronism in terms of dignity
and social justice (social justice memory), tend to recall the history of the slum
as collective action on the part of residents in pursuit of "a better place to live"
(what I call the collective action memory). On the other hand, those who remember Peronism in terms of the goods distributed by the government (distributionist
memory) tend to emphasize the role of Peronist leaders in the improvement of the
slum (thepersonalist memory). It is important to note that these different memories
and narratives are neither clear-cut nor mutually exclusive. Rather, they comprise
different accents and emphases within a master narrative of Peronism as a "wonderful time," and of the slum as a much more livable place than in the past because
of the existence of some urban services.
One of the aims of my research was to trace a history of problem-solving in
a poor neighborhood in Greater Buenos Aires, with the purpose of illustrating the
increasing relevance of clientelist arrangements to the ways poor people solved
their everyday survival problems. With that end in mind, I began to pay particular
attention to the stories people told me about the history of the neighborhood and
of their own history in it. During my first months of fieldwork, I was frustrated
to discover the absence of a singular coherent "history of the slum." The initial
anxiety gave way, however, when I realized that the conflicting narratives I was
hearing were much more interesting.
According to most residents, the slum improved a lot during the last decade,
mostly because the streets were paved. Before that, a light rain could turn the whole
slum into a muddy nightmare. Yet, while everybody agrees that the asphalt "made
a real difference," there are at least two versions of the "history of the asphalt."
One stresses the collective organization of the neighborhood which, so the story
goes, "got together" for the first time in the slum's history.
The asphalt was made by the neighbors, we organized soccer competitions, we sold chorizos
and empanadas, and we collected the money... and the municipality charged us to build
it. The whole neighborhood was united... (Roberto)

340

Auyero

If the neighborhood changed radically after the asphalting, "el asfalto" also
represented a very important organizational experience. Within this collective action version, residents emphasize the role played by a particular organization to
which they belonged:
The asphalting was possible thanks to the church organizations. The neighbors organized
raffles, street fairs, festivals, soccer competitions. We collected the money and went to the
municipality. That is the way Villa Paraiso was asphalted (Toto)

Note that none of them overlook the role played by the Municipality in paving
the streets, but the emphasis is placed on the collective organization of neighbors
in pursuit of a common objective. This version also stresses the collective action
of neighbors that led to the building of the sewage system and the health centers
serving the slum.
In 1989, in an effort to "rescue the collective memory" of the slum and
to "recuperate our history as part of our identity," the Grupo Parroquia Nueva
conducted a series of interviews with neighbors, part of which were published in
a one-edition document entitled Making Memory in Villa Paraiso. The Parroquia
Nueva group was associated with the Third World Priests Movement (very much
inspired by Liberation Theology) and had a clear leftist political orientation. The
document represents an extreme, almost epic, version of the collective action
memory. There, Anitaa long-time neighborreports that the sewage system, the
improvement (paving) of the streets, and the lighting of the alleyways were carried
out "slowly and with the effort of each and every neighbor, [we were] together."
That is the reason why according to her, it can be said that "Villa Paraiso was selfconstructed ... this was truly heroic... all the transformations of the area were
due to the collective effort of the neighborhood (my emphasis)." In this document,
Sergio, another resident, says that "It was through the [neighborhood association]
Coordinadora that we got an incredible amount of things: the day care center,
the new school building, the health center, the asphalting [... ] the free garbage
collection." The document ends up with a testimony that encapsulates this epic
version: "What I remember most clearly is that when the people got together, we
got things done that is the way."
This collective action version does not stand alone. If one "takes the trouble
to look closely," as W.F. Whyte (1943) recommends in his seminal study of the
street-corner society, within the same destitute neighborhood, and even among
people who live on the same block and who share the same categorical sociological
attributes, there are other versions of the same episodes and processes.
J: How was the asphalt made? Was it made by the neighbors?
Coco: No, the municipality did it. It was all made by the municipality ...

A suspicious reader may think that they are talking about different sectors
of the same slum, but most of the testimonies about the asphalt were gathered
from people living on the same block. Although stories and recollections do not

Re-Membering Peronism

341

differ altogetherafter all, they are talking about the same material asphaltthe
accents and highlights vary. In this other narrative of the neighborhood, one I
describe as "personalist," the mayor (Rolo Fontana) or some local politician (like
the abovementioned Juan Pisutti) become protagonists in the general improvement
of the living conditions.
The mayor built the health center, paved the streets... he did a lot for the neighborhood.
He tried to improve the neighborhood We always get aid from the mayor... We go to
see him when we need something and, sooner or later, we get an answer (to our demands).
(Cristina)
The neighborhood has improved a lot, and many people thank Rolo. The neighbors put up
the money to have the paving done, but whenever they ask him for pipelines, sooner or later
they arrive. He sent the machines to do this paving, although we paid for the renting of the
machines and for the materials. (M6nica)

The president of one of the neighborhood associations told me that he and

some of his neighbors started "the struggle" (la lucha) to have the health-center
built by "pressuring" the mayor. They (the members of the community association)
built the place. They painted it. They got the first physician. Lucina, an old time
resident who lives one block away from the president's house, has another version
of the same health center:
Matilde [another powerful local political broker] was the one who started with the health
center at the neighborhood association; she brought the nurse and brought the first desk.
Although the president of the association is the one in charge, Matilde always lends him a
hand.

Or, as another old resident notes,

The paving was done through politics, it was done by Rolo [the mayor]. The municipality
helps a lot. Politics helps a lot.

It is a matter of accents, of course, but the differences can hardly be missed.

The collective action memory and the personalist memory refer to the same place,
to the same material improvements, but they do so in ways that give a central
place to different protagonists: either to neighbors and their collective organizations or to state officials and local politicians.
These varying recollections come from people who identified themselves
as "truly Peronists," some as active members of the Peronist Party, others as
loyal voters. Interestingly enough, their different versions of the history of the
slum coincide with their different memories of Peronism. During in-depth interviews and occasional conversations, I would invariably ask the same questions
about Peronism: What do you remember about the Peronist epoch? What was the
most important thing that Eva Per6n, Juan Peron or Peronism accomplished? The
personalist memory of the history of the slum dovetails with a distributionist memory of Peronism. Some people instantly refer to the goods received by the Peronist
government:

342

Auyero
I remember when the people of Peron sent clothes, sneakers, and gave materials so that
people were able to build up their homes I remember that they sent books, pencils,
sneakers, to my school... a Peronist government should think for the worker, not for those
at the top (Alfonsina)
(When Peron went to the northern State of Formosa during Christmas)... he distributed
boxes full of things. On the New Year, (he handed out) toys. It wasn't as they do now...
(nowadays) they hand out toys and they keep the toys for those at the top (para los capos)...
no... (they handed out) toys, dolls, bicycles, sewing machines, bicycles for the guys so that
they can go to work, balls for those who knew how to play soccer, soccer clothes. Then, he
and Evita went to Asuncidn (Paraguay), and they handed out toys. That is something that
Paraguayans will never forget. At Christmas, they gave cider, panettone, a box, this big,
full... Evita was a great woman, who loved people from her heart, really from her heart,
she loved the elderly, the students, the children. (Ana)

All of them place their memories of those "wonderful times" against the
backdrop of present day life conditions in the shantytown, and use the opportunity
of that recollection to vent their discontent with and criticisms of the current
(Peronist) government.11
What really impressed me (about the Peronist epoch), and will keep on impressing me,
were the trucks handing out blankets, quilts, and mattresses in the barrios... boxes full of
sneakers. That is missing now. What really impressed me was how these things were given.
We haven't seen that in many years now... (When Per6n was in office), I went and asked
for things, and they gave them to me. If you asked for a metal sheet, you would get it. If
you asked for food, you would get it. (Cholo)
These excerpts are only a few of the dozens of testimonies that stress the
things that were distributed under Peronism. These memories recall what has been
oftentimes noted by scholars working on Peronism as 'gift-giving' (Plotkin 1993;
Caimari 1994). Gift-giving as a form of state beneficence has always been part of
the Peronist subculture, specially exercisedexplicitly and continuouslyby Eva
Per6n.12 Despite the criticisms toward the current national government because
of its lack of attention to "the problems of the poor," the Peronist mayor and the
local brokers (also Peronist) are spared of this criticism. They are defined, by
shanty-town dwellers, as "the true Peronists." Victoria wonderfully summarizes
this association of Peronism with the things distributed by the paternalist State,
and the reproaches that stem from the absence of it:
[With Per6n]... I used to get my cider and my panettone for Christmas. It was different.
Now Peronism is in power, but it is different During the seventies (when Peron was in
power) you would go to the health center, and they would give you the best powdered milk
(Nido). They used to give me three kilos every 15 days There was a lot of help. Now I
see the celebrations of "Children's day," and they have nothing to do with those celebrations
back in the 1970s: cookies, hot chocolate, candies... each kid used to get a toy at the end
of the day... Now they make a raffle, and not everybody gets a toy
Peronism "supported the poor," Ana told me. For Marta, the most important
thing that Per6n and Evita did was to "help the poor, they gave houses to the people,
they handed out sewing machines..." Some women stress the "women's rights"

Re-Membering Peronism

343

or the "emancipation of women" that was achieved when Eva Per6n was alive. But
almost invariably the conversation about Peronism will return to the goods that
they used to obtain.
"Do you have any particular recollection of Evita?," I asked Toto, who had
previously explained to me the key role played by various community organizations
in the improvement of the slum (what I called the "collective action version"):
Toto: My mother used to work in a tannery in Avellaneda [southern Buenos Aires], and
when Eva began to visit the humble people, she went to that factory to see the working
conditions of the humble workers. There were people from the countryside, and they were
working like animals. Nobody dared to talk to Evita, and my mother's work-mates asked
her to tell Evita what was going on in the factory. My mother didn't know how to write or
read, and when she saw her, she was so moved that she started crying. Evita calmed her,
and she told my mom that she was a common woman, a woman like her. My mom told
Evita that every rainy day the whole ceiling fell down because it was a metal sheet ceiling.
Twenty days later, they had everything renovated.

Only a superficial reading can equate this recollection with those quoted
before, A closer look sheds light on a nuance not present in the previous 'distributionist' testimonies. Toto recalls Peronism as that social and political movement
after which they (workers) were no longer "animals." His narrative locates dignity
and social justice at the center of the meaning of Peronism. Curiously enough,
his recollection of the history of the shantytown emphasizes, as we saw, the
neighbors' collective action (and particularly the action of the Catholic Church
groups). The social justice memory coincides with the collective action
memory. Toto does not forget the goods that Evita sent, however, for him,
Peronism meant something else as wellrespect, pride or, as in James' analysis, an affirmation of workers' rights within society and within the workplace.
His is a "social justice memory" of Peronism, much like the memory of another
old-time Peronist, a former activist in the clandestine movement known as the
"Peronist Resistance" during the 1960s. He succinctly put it: "Per6n screwed
the oligarchy... When Per6n took office, everything changed because the
worker ceased to be a slave of the rich people. He awakened (aviv6) the
workers."
Where do these different memories come from? What impact do these mnemonic frames have on actors' political beliefs? In other words, what are the sources
and consequences of these diverse narratives? In what follows, I explore this structured and structuring character of memory by focusing on: a) the relational matrix
in which they are embedded, and b) the function of legitimation fulfilled by the
memories I call personalist and distributionist. If memory is, as Schwartz asserts
(1996b:278, my emphasis), both "a mirror that reflects the concerns of society"
and a "lamp of practical guidance and moral precedent," it is necessary to explore
the present problems these recollections address and the effects these narratives
have on those problems.

344

Auyero

THE CLIENTELIST RELATIONAL MATRIX

More than 60% of the economically active population of Villa Paraiso is
currently unemployed and underemployed, more than 50% has unmet basic needs,
and approximately 70% has an income below the official poverty line.13 In this
context of outright deproletarianization and extreme material deprivation, one of
the most relevant and reliable means of satisfying the poor's basic needs for food
and health care is through the political organization that has direct access to the
state's resources: the Peronist Party. This party
is deeply entrenched at the base level Peronism is linked to its mass base through trade
unions, neighborhood associations, and soccer clubs. The party is also linked to working
and lower class society by means of clientelistic ties to local and neighborhood bosses, who
serve as brokers between the municipal and provincial Peronist governments and the mass
base (Levitsky 1996a:20).

In poverty-stricken neighborhoods, as well as in squatter settlements and

slums, the Unidades Bdsicas [local offices of the Party] constitute one of the most
important places through which basic needs can be satisfied and basic problems
can be solved. These Unidades Bdsicas give great organizational strength to the
Peronist party and are the sites where Peronist brokers (such as Matilde or Juan
Pisutti) are located.
Brokers usually do favors (such as distribute food and medicine) for their
potential voters and for others, but they are not alone in their work. They almost
always have an inner circle of followers. These followers are the brokers' "personal satellites," to use Marshall Sahlins' (1977) expression. The problem-solving
network consists of a series of wheels of irregular shape, pivoting around the different brokers. The broker is related to the members of his or her inner circle
through strong ties of long-lasting friendship, parentage, and/or fictive kinship.
Both Matilde and Juanthe two most important and powerful local leaders in
Villa Paraisohave this effective network (Epstein 1969) around them, people
with whom interactions are more intense and more regular. This inner circle helps
the brokers to solve the everyday problems of slum-dwellers. They run the soupkitchens that function at the broker's Unidad Bdsica, they are normally in charge
of opening, cleaning and maintaining the locale, they usually announce when the
broker is available at the UB to the "outer circle," and they spread the news when
food is being distributed at the UB or the Municipal building.
The outer circlethe potential beneficiaries of the brokers' distributive
capacitiesare related to brokers through weak ties.14 They contact the broker
when problems arise or when a special favor is needed (a food package, some
medicine, a driver's license, the water truck, getting a friend out of jail, and so on);
but they do not develop ties of friendship or fictive kinship with brokers. Although
they may attend some of the rallies or gatherings organized by the broker, or even
vote for him or her, they do not have an everyday, close, intimate relationship

Re-Membering Peronism

345

with them. In other words, the brokers' ties to his/her inner circles are dense and
intense; their ties to the outer circle are more sparse and intermittently activated.
The bases for this strong relationship are multiple. Those who are part of
the brokers'inner circle have known their brokers for quite a long time (usually
more than four or five years), and the brokers have "lent them a hand"as one
inner circle member told mein a time of extreme hardship. In the life-stories
and interviews I recorded, most of the members of the inner circle highlighted
a foundational favor that inaugurated this long-lasting and, in their words, "very
useful" relationship. Brokers are portrayed as coming to rescue them without
ulterior motives. With that foundational favor (exemplified by Maria's eyeglasses,
mentioned in the Introduction), a relationship of mutual help is established. The
foundational transactions develop into ties, which in turn will concatenate into
networks.
Within the Peronist problem-solving network, Peronist brokers function as
gatekeepers for the flow of goods and services coming from the executive branch
of municipal power (the mayor) and the flow of support and votes coming from
the "clients." Resources (food and medicine) come from the Municipality to the
Unidad Bdsica where the brokers have discretionary power to do what they want
with them. The information concerning food distribution at the municipal building
also circulates through the UBs. As a woman from a UB told me: "Every month,
at the Party meetings, the mayor informs us (the 140 UBs that usually attend the
meeting) of the date when they are going to give out food... We tell the neighbors."
Being members of the Peronist party, brokers have connections to and knowledge about resource-distribution. They enjoy what network analysts call positional
centrality (Knoke 1990). Although neighbors know, in general, about the food distribution at the municipality, they do not know the precise date on which the
distribution will be carried out. Furthermore, they ignore the always changing
procedures to obtain the bags of food. Brokers do know the dates and have the
specially designed cards without which people cannot obtain the food. These cards
are small tickets with a number on them that indicates the date on which they can
go to the municipal building. Whether or not the general population's ignorance
is deliberately created, or is an ignorance that "just happens," it is clear that Peronist brokers constantly attempt to establish themselves as the (only) channels that
facilitate transactions or resource flows.15
In very schematic terms, this is the relational matrix in which the memories
of Peronism and the history of the slum are embedded. This is the social environment in which the diverse memories originate. Members of brokers' inner circles
invariably recall Peronist "wonderful times" in terms of the goods they obtained
from the paternalist state personified in the figures of Per6n and his wife (distributionist memory). At the same time, members of brokers' inner circles recall
the history of the neighborhood in terms of the decisive influence of the broker
and/or the mayor (personalist memory). Thus, the distributionist and personalist

346

Auyero

memories are rooted in an ongoing network of favors, goods, and support. The
clientelist network structures the shape, depth, and form of these memories. In the
final section of this paper, I want to offer an hypothesis concerning the structuring
function of these structured memories.
RE-MEMBERING
The closer to the local center of power the resident is, i.e. to the broker, the
more the history of the neighborhood will be recounted in terms of the key role
played by brokers Juan or Matilde or Mayor Rolo. The stronger the relationship
with these centers of power, the more the history of Peronism will be remembered
in terms of the personalized favors received from the Perons. When confronted
with the personalist and distributionist memories, we face what Gans (1992) calls
a "structurally encouraged case of forgetfulness." The inner circle structures these
memories and, at the same time, these memories structure the workings of this
relational matrix.
These memories are "truly effective in the present," not only because they are
retold now but because, as Boyarin notes, they constitute a politics. They fulfill
the important function of legitimating brokers' current positional centrality, i.e.
of justifying their power. The mnemonic lenses with which members of brokers'
inner circles read the history of the slum are infused with brokers' current centrality.
And this centrality, this power, is justified not only because brokers are perceived
as historical protagonists in the improvement of the slum but also because these
brokers are seen as fulfilling the function the Peronist government once fulfilled:
distributing goods. In this sense, brokers are seen as today's Perons, not because
members of the inner circles perceive them as modern incarnations of these Populist
leaders but because they perform the role that, it is believed, the Perons once
performed: doing personalized favors.
The brokers' way of doing politics (i.e. the personalized, paternalist, and
arbitrary distribution of goods, services, and favors) resembles a form of political
activity that Peronism had attacked in the past (i.e. Conservative and Radical
clientelism). Nevertheless, those who receive the best benefits from that distribution
(i.e. the inner circles) live this clientelism as "true Peronism." They live clientelism
in this way because what they remember of Peronism is what brokers are doing
today. It is as if the history of Peronism is constantly being retoldrewrittenin
the present tense, by the everyday enactment of political clientelism. In other words,
much like the World War II generation made Lincoln relevant to "understanding
and solving their problems" (Schwartz 1996a:912), the narrative of Peronism, as a
time when access to material goods (personally distributed by Juan and Eva Per6n)
was relatively easy, is made relevant to solving present and pressing problems and
to justify current clientelist politics.16 We (the brokers) do personal favors and
distribute goods because that is what good Peronism is all about. We (the inner

Re-Membering Peronism

347

circle) participate in this way of doing politics because we are Peronists. As a

Peronist activist tellingly puts it,
Peronism is about helping poor people, and that's what we are doing here. The economic
situation is terrible and people are needy. So we give them bags of food, medicine, maybe
even a job. That's what Peronism is all about (quoted in Levitsky 1998b).

Within brokers' inner circles, there are no traces of the collective action version of the history of the slum nor of the social justice memory of Peronism. These
memories are dysfunctional to current political arrangements because they present
other possible scenarios. And clientelism works better without being constantly
reminded of its arbitrary character. Clientelism, as the strong functionalist argument goes, does not need the presence of counterfactuals. It is presented as a social
arrangement that has been with us (the members of the inner circles) for a long
time, since the time of the Perons, since the time when the brokers were working
hard for the improvement of the slum.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
"Memory, then, no matter how small the piece remembered, demands my respect, my attention, and my trust," writes Toni Morrison (1996:214). The seemingly
insignificant story of Maria's eyeglasses commands our sociological imagination.
In other words, those eyeglasses can help us link the "the personal troubles of
milieu" and the "public issues of social structure" about which C. Wright Mills
so perceptively talks. The Marias that form part of clientelist inner circles are
not "mnemonic Robinson Crusoes (Zerubavel 1996:285)." They are embedded in
"remembrance environments (Zerubavel 1996:284)" that structure what is to be
remembered and what is to be forgotten. As other social actors, they tend to idealize the past as part of their moral work; their golden past is located in the first and
second governments of Per6n (1946-1955). In this paper, I have argued that this
idealization implies a social construction of remembering/forgetting. By paying
attention to the form of clientelist networks, I tried to explain the specific relational
support for this social construction of memory. I have also argued that, within these
clientelist networks, we can detect a process of (re)invention of a tradition, a tradition that serves to legitimize existing social arrangements. Although Peronism
(still) means different things to different people, there is one meaning of Peronism
that tends to be dominant within brokers' inner circles. Within this Schutzian world
of truth, Peronism has to do more with the distribution of things than with an oppositional, heretical culture. By paying direct attention to this dominant meaning
and to this reinvented tradition, I have sought to provide a more nuanced analysis
of the structuring capacities of political memories. Further research is needed on:
a) the process by which different memories constantly impact on the rewriting
of the history of this political movement (see, for example, Schwartz's analysis

348

Auyero

of commemoration [1997]); b) the struggles for control of the images of the historical figures of Peronism (Juan and Eva Per6n. See, for example, Fine's study
of reputational entrepreneurs [1996]); c) the influence that public narratives of
Peronism (Somers 1994)official validations of one legitimate, "truly Peronist,"
memoryhave on mnemonic communities.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was assisted by a grant from the Joint Committee on Latin
American and Caribbean Studies of the Social Science Research Council and the
American Council of Learned Societies with funds provided by the Ford Foundation. A previous version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of
the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, IL, September 24-26, 1998. I
wish to thank Charles Tilly, Deborah Poole, Steve Levitsky, Pierre Ostiguy, Moira
McKinnon, and Mark Healey for comments on earlier versions of this paper. Parts
of this essay were adapted from my book Doing Politics. Peronist Networks, Political Culture and Urban Poverty (Duke University Press, forthcoming).
ENDNOTES
1. For an ethnographic description of the slum, see Auyero (1999a).
2. Fieldwork was carried out from December (1995) to February (1996), and from July (1996)
to January (1997), as part of my doctoral dissertation project. The original aim of my fieldwork
research was to reconstruct a history of problem-solving in a poor neighborhood in Greater Buenos
Aires, with the purpose of illustrating the increasing relevance of "clientelist" arrangements in the
way in which poor people solve their everyday survival problems. Specifically, I studied the
complex and changing relationships between problem-solving networks linked to the Peronist
Party and the survival strategies of slum-dwellers.
3. Taylor's analysis (1979) of the "myths of Eva Per6n" is one of the few exceptions to this lack of
first-hand knowledge.
4. Following Bourdieu (1977; 1991), misrecognition is here understood as the denial of the economic
and political interests present in a set of practices.
5. This was a process with limitations and contradictions. As James himself notes, "much of the
Peronist state's efforts between 1946 and its demise in 1955 can be viewed as an attempt to
institutionalise and control the heretical challenge it had unleashed in the earlier period and to
absorb this challenge within a new state-sponsored orthodoxy. Viewed in this light Peronism was,
in a certain sense, a passive, demobilising social experience for workers. It stressed increasingly
in its official rhetoric the controlled, limited mobilisation of workers under the aegis of the state
(James 1988:34)." In other words, since its inception Peronism did not have a single meaning for the
working class. This said, I agree with James in that, from the workers' points of view, Peronism was
something more than a response to economic grievances and class exploitation, it was a "political
movement which represented a crucial shift in the working-class political allegiance and behavior,
and which presented its adherents with a distinct political vision (James 1988:34)." In this sense,
this movement can be called heretical for most workers saw in Peronism "a vision of a more decent
society in which they recognized for themselves a vital role, a vision couched in a language with
which they could identify. It represented, too, a political culture of opposition, of rejection of all
that had gone beforepolitically, socially, and economically; a sense of blasphemy against the
norms and self-esteem of traditional elite (James 1988:40)."

349

Re-Membering Peronism

6. The "atomizing and individualizing" effects of clientelist practices are a contested issue. As
Burgwald (1996) shows in his analysis of clientelism in the squatter settlement of "La Lucha
de los Pobres" in Quito, clientelist practices can coexist with a specific type of repertoire of
collective action. See also Escobar (1995) and Gay (1998).
7. For an analysis of this period, see James (1988).
8. Two photographic portraits of Per<5n and his wife, Eva, were enclosed in the first issue of the
Peronist Party magazine, El Bonaerense. The caption reads: "To keep memory alive. Pictures of
the General Per6n and of the compaiiera Evita are included in this issue, as a way to keep alive
the legacy of a Just, Free, and Sovereign Motherland."
9. Data are from one of the voting centers in the slum and from my own survey.
10. As Jelin (1997:302) remarks in Argentina "the dispute about Peronism is still open, continually
regenerated."
11. On the relationship between historical moments, local events, and biographies, see Schwartz
(1999).
12. Julie Taylor (1979) rightly points out that this aspect of Eva's work is an essential component of
one of the "myths" surrounding her persona. According to Taylor, the Myth of the Lady of Hope
constructs an image of an Eva who knew nothing of politics and who "found in social work a sphere
for which her womanly intuition and emotional life qualified her perfectly. She dedicated much of
this work to children, as would be expected from such an ideally feminine, thus deeply maternal,
woman (Taylor 1979:75)." Eva Per6n, according to this myth, "had no sons and daughters of her
own; she was mother to the children of Argentina. More than that, she was mother of the nation as a
whole, particularly to the common people and the poor and needy of Argentina" (Taylor 1979:75).
Eva's love for the common people impelled her to enter "social action." Out of passion, out of
vocation, social work was not a job but a mission: her mission in life. The myth of the Lady of
Hope asserts that: "[S]he felt and expressed this devotion as interchangeable with, if not identical
to, a motherly devotion" (Taylor 1979: 76). A "woman of the people": her public presentation
excluded all bureaucratic distance between her and "her people." According to Taylor, one of the
most enduring traditions associated with the image of the "young blonde woman who received
homage and dispensed favors seated at her desk" is that of the "stream of the innumerable poor
with their individual problems (Taylor 1979:41)." I further explore this in Auyero (1999b).
13. The data come from my survey based on a stratified random sample (300 cases), carried out during
the months of September-October in Villa Paraiso, and from 1NDEC (1991, 1993). In 1993, the
poverty line for a family of four was $420 a month (Minujin and Kessler, 1995:63).
14. On the difference between "strong" and "weak" ties (time, intimacy, and emotional intensity
involved in the relationships), see Granovetter(1973).
15. On the relationship between access to information and network structure, see Erickson (1996).
On brokerage, see Gould and Fernandez (1990:91). These functions of gatekeeping and information hoarding are shared by many of the different types of brokers in diverse historical and
geographical settings. Precinct captains (Guterbock 1987; Katzenelson 1980; Knoke 1990), capituleros (Stein 1980), cabos eleitorales (Gay 1990) and caudillos (Rock 1977) partake of the
same structural location and function. As Carlos and Anderson put it (1991): "A political broker
can either obstruct or facilitate the flow of demands, favors, goods and services to or from some
constituency."
16. The past is then invoked for present needs. As Maines et al. (1983:163) assert, following the lead of
George Mead, "[TJhe symbolic reconstruction of the past thus involves redefining the meaning of
past events in such a way that they have meaning in and utility for the present. This reconstruction
is necessary because new situations confront the person with unexpected occurrences, and the
functional character of reconstruction is contained in its contribution to present meanings."

REFERENCES
Adelman, J. (1994). Post-Populist Argentina. New Left Review, 203, 65-91.
Auyero, J. (1999a). This is Like the Bronx, isn't it? Lived Experiences of Slum-dwellers in Argentina.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 23, 1.45-69.

350

Auyero

. (1999b). Performing Evita. A Tale of Two Peronist Women. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 27,4,461-493.
Barthel, D. (1996). Getting in Touch with History: The Role of Historic Preservation in Shaping
Collective Memories. The Expanding Past. Qualitative Sociology 19, 3, 345-364.
Benjamin, W. (1968). Theses on the Philosophy of History. In W. Benjamin, llluminations(pp. 253-64).
New York: Schocken Books.
Bor6n, A. (1995). Peronismo y Menemismo. Buenos Aires: El Cielo por Asalto.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Borges, J. L. (1987). Obras Completas. Buenos Aires: Emece.
Boyarin, J. (1994). Remapping Memory: The Politics of Time and Space. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Burgwald, G. (1996). Struggle of the Poor: Neighborhood Organization and Clientelist Practice in a
Quito Squatter Settlement. Amsterdam: CEDLA.
Caiman, L. (1994). Peron y la Iglesia Catolica. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana.
Carlos, M. & Anderson, B. (1991). Political Brokerage and Network Politics in Mexico: The case of
a dominance system. In D. Wilier & B. Anderson (Eds.), Networks, Exchange and Coercion. The
Elementary Theory and its Applications (pp. 169-87). New York: Elsevier.
DeCerteau, M. (1997). The Capture of Speech and Other Political Writings. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
Douglas, M. (1980). Introduction: Maurice Halbwachs. In M. Halbwachs, The Collective Memory
(pp. 1-21). New York: Harper & Row.
Durkheim, E. (1984). The Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press.
Epstein, A. L. (1969). The Network and the Urban Organization. In C. J. Mitchel (Ed.), Social Networks
in Urban Situations (pp. 77-116). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Escobar, C. (1997). Clientelism and Citizenship: The Limits of Democratic Reforms in Colombia.
Paper Delivered at the 1997 Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Guadalajara,
Mexico, April! 7-19.
. (1994). Clientelism and Social Protest: Peasant Politics in Northern Colombia. In L. Ronigerand
A. Gilnes-Ayata (Eds.), Democracy, Clientelism, and Civil Society. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Fine, G. A. (1996). Reputational Entrepeneurs and the Memory of Incompetence: Melting Supporters,
Partisan Warriors, and Images of President Harding. American Journal of Sociology, 101, 5,
1159-93.
Cans, H. J. (1992). Sociological Amnesia: The Noncumulation of Normal Social Science. Sociological
Forum,'!, 4, 701-11.
Gay, R. (1995). Between Clientelism and Universalism: Reflections on Popular Politics in Brazil.
Unpublished Manuscript.
. (1990). Community Organization and Clientelist Politics in Contemporary Brazil: a case study
from suburban Rio de Janeiro. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 14, 4,
648-65.
. (1994). Popular Organization and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro. A Tale of Two Favelas.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Gould, R. & Fernandez, R. (1989). Structures of Mediation: A Formal Approach to Brokerage in
Transaction Networks. Sociological Methodology, 1990, 89-126.
Granovetter, M. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 13601380.
Guterbock, T. (1980). Machine Politics in Transition: Party and Community in Chicago. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Gutierrez, R. (1998). Desindicalizacion y cambio organizativo del peronismo argentine, 1982-1995.
Paper Delivered at the 1998 Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, IL,
September 24-26.
Halbwachs, M. (1980). The Collective Memory. New York: Harper & Row.
James, D. (1988). Resistance and Integration. Peronism and the Argentina Working Class, 1946-1976.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jelin, E. (1997). Don't Cry for Me, Argentina, or the Globalization of Peronism. Contemporary Sociology, 26, 3, 302-304.
Katzenelson, I. (1981). City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning ofClss in the United States.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Re-Membering Peronism

351

Knoke, D. (1990). Political Networks, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Levitsky, S. (1996a). Crisis, Party Adaptation, and Regime Stability in Argentina. Paper Delivered at
the 1997 Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Guadalajara, Mexico, April 17-19.
. (1996b). Populism is Dead! Live the Populist Party! Labor-Based Party Adaptation and Survival
in Argentina. Unpublished Manuscript. Department of Political Science. University of California,
Berkeley.
.(1998a). Institutionalization and Peronism. Party Politics 4, no. 1:77-92.
. (1998b). From Labor Politics to Machine Politics: The De-Unionization of Urban Peronism,
1983-97. Paper Delivered at the 1998 Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association,
Chicago, 1L, September 24-26.
Minujin, A. & Kessler, G. (1995). La Nueva Pobreia en Argentina. Planeta, Buenos Aires.
Morrison, T. (1996). Memory, Creation, and Writing. In J. McConkey (Ed.), The Anatomy of Memory.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Nora, P. (1989). Between Memory and History: les lieux de m^moire. Representations, 26,7-25.
Passerini, L. (1987). Fascism in Popular Memory. The Cultural Experience of the Turin Working Class.
Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Plotkin, M. (1993). Mafiana es San Peron. Propaganda, rituales polfticos y educaci6n en el regimen
peronista (1945-1955). Buenos Aires: Ariel.
Rock, D. (1972). Machine Politics in Buenos Aires and the Argentine Radical Party, 1912-1930.
Journal of Latin American Studies, 4, 2, 233-56.
. (1975). Politics in Argentina: the Rise and Fall of Radicalism, 1890-1930. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Rubinich, L. (1991). Apuntes sobre nociones de derechos en sectores populares urbanos. Buenos Aires:
Documentos CEDES.
Sahlins, M. (1977). Poor Man, Rich Man, Big-Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia.
In S. Schmidt, L. Guasti, C. Landg & J. Scott (Eds.), Friends, Followers, and Factions: A Reader
in Political Clientelism. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press.
Sawers, L. (1996). The Other Argentina. The Interior and National Development. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Schutz, A. (1962). Collected Papers. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Schwartz, B. (1997). Collective Memory and History: How Abraham Lincoln Became a Symbol of
Racial Equality. The Sociological Quarterly 38, 3, 469-96.
. (1996a). Memory as a Cultural System: Abraham Lincoln in World War II. American Sociological
Review 61: 908-27.
. (I996b). Introduction: The Expanding Past. Qualitative Sociology 19, no.3:275-283.
.(1999) Memory and the Practices of Commitment. In B. Glassner & R. Hertz (Eds.), Qualitative
Sociology as Everyday Life. California: Sage.
Sidicaro, R. & Mayer J. (1995). Politico y sociedad en los afios del Menemismo. Buenos Aires:
Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Somers, M. R. (1995). What's Political or Cultural About Political Culture and the Public Sphere?
Toward an Historical Sociology of Concept Formation. Sociological Theory, 13, 113-44.
Somers, M. R. & Gibson G. D. (1994). Reclaiming the Epistemological 'Other': Narrative and the
social constitution of identity. In C, Calhoun (Ed.), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity.
(pp. 37-99). Oxford: Blackwell.
Stein, S. (1980). Populism in Peru. The Emergence of the Masses and the Politics of Social Control.

Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Taylor, D. (1997). Disappearing Acts. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Taylor, J. (1979). Eva Peron. The Myths of a Woman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Tilly, C. (1994). Afterword: Political Memories in Space and Time. In Boyarin J. (Ed.), Remapping
Memory, (pp. 241-256). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Wagner-Pacifici, R. & Schwartz B. (1991). The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Commemorating a Difficult Past. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 376-420.
Walter, R. (1985). The Province of Buenos Aires and Argentine Politics, 1912-1943. Cambridge, MA:
Cambridge University Press.
Whyte, W. F. (1943). Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italiam Slum. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
Zerubavel, E. (1996). Social Memories: Steps to a Sociology of the Past. Qualitative Sociology, 19,3,
283-99.