Anthropology of Work Review

Theorizing Unemployment: Toward an Argentine Anthropology of Work

Mariano D. Perelman, Universidad de Buenos Aires
[translated by Ann Kingsolver and Mariano Perelman]

Abstract would make it recognizable as a subfield. In the past several

The recent crisis related to neoliberal economic poli-
cies in Argentina brought more of a focus in Argentine an-
thropology to issues related to work and unemployment.
The anthropology of work, before the crisis, was a neglected
area of the discipline. I am proposing that we pay theoretical
attention, in and beyond Argentine anthropology, not only
to labor relations and conditions, but also to the subjectiv-
ities and collective actions within the growing unemployed
and underemployed population in Argentina. Unemployed
individuals still conceptualize of themselves as workers; it
is how they have constructed their identities. A theoretical
focus on the unemployed in the anthropology of work will
contribute to our understandings of heterogeneous capital-
ist relations and subjectivities.
Keywords: anthropology of work, Argentina, capi-
talism, unemployment
Introduction
The anthropology of work is a withered branch of
Argentine anthropology. Although it has been a recurrent
theme of investigation since the founding of the discipline
in Argentina, anthropology of work has not developed its
own homogeneous set of core concepts and methods that
years, however, because of the changes that have occurred
in Argentina, there seems to have been a resurgence of the
anthropology of work. Transformations related to work
have been the strongest effects of the crisis. Precarious, in-
formal, and temporary work, as well as unemployment,1
have become constants in a society accustomed to high em-
ployment rates in the formal sector, with social welfare
guarantees to workers.
At the same time, as Merklen (2005) has argued, the
degradation of labor relations was accompanied by impor-
tant changes in political support for workers. The unions that
had represented workers since the 1940s fell apart because
of declining employment rates.2 Leftist political parties were
not able to respond satisfactorily to the crisis, falling into
divisions and crisis themselves. Peronism (having been con-
solidated as the workers’ party), in its Menemist form (1989
to 1999), was the staunchest supporter of the international
credit institutions (e.g., the Interamerican Bank, the World
Bank, and the International Monetary Fund). Peronists were
applying neoliberal policies of which the party had previ-
ously been suspicious. The policies’ implementation caused
a deep salary regression and the dismantling of the economy.
This application of policies reducing the effectiveness of the

Volume XXVIII, Number 1 8

 Anthropology of Work Review
State to address the unemployment crisis was the govern-
ment’s own decision. In this context, the workers who had
been central to Argentine identity (Grassi, et al. 1994) lost
their leading role to a new set of social actors: the poor.
During the last decade of the twentieth century,
anthropologists came to view the loss of employment as
a fact of everyday life in growing sectors of the Argentine
population, and focused on new forms of collective action
among the unemployed (cf. Manzano 2003, 2004; Quirós 2006)
or on the effects of new social policies in relation to the un-
employed (cf. Grassi 2003; Álvarez Leguizamón 2005). There
arose a specific area of state intervention—the categorization
of the population and of collective action—and an intellec-
tual project to understand the social construction of the
problem of unemployment. Some anthropologists have be-
gun to study the diverse forms that collective social action
has taken in Argentina, specifically related to unemploy-
ment. Some are focusing on the ways that traditionally con-
ceptualized units of analysis, like the union or the worker,
have become more precarious. Others are studying the spe-
cific new forms that precarious labor takes, like telemar-
keting or working in supermarkets. In this project, we are
proposing theoretical and methodological approaches focus-
ing on subjects who find themselves unemployed as the basis
for building an Argentine anthropology of work.
To position ourselves in this way is not to imply a re-
ductionist economic focus—in fact, we intend the reverse.
We think that unemployment processes must be seen in rela-
tion to the labor market. But above all, we think that indi-
viduals’ ways of identifying themselves as workers are not
erased with unemployment, especially in a country in which
high employment rates in the formal sector characterized the
population and was a source of pride and identity. In this
case, an anthropology of work perspective can be used to
understand the constitution of new subjectivities.
Reconstructing Subfields
Anthropology’s subfields have been historically con-
structed based on the specific problematics articulated in
the constitution of large departments and funding organi-
zations. These groups have defined the scientific concepts
and perspectives used for viewing social life (cf. Appadurai
2002; Gledhill 2000; Menéndez 2000; Vincent 1998, 2002). At
the University of Buenos Aires, for example, large research
teams have always included work as a topic of investiga-
tion, but always in relation to other issues. Work has not
been the central conceptual and methodological focus of
many studies; work has been more often a contextual factor
than a way to explain social life. It is not that work has been
absent from anthropological research—in fact, it appears
almost constantly. In economic anthropology, political an-
thropology, and anthropological studies of consumption,
education, and health, work appears, but not as the central
focus of investigation (cf. Visacovsky and Guber 2002;
Frederic and Soprano 2005).
There are some social science disciplines in which sub-
fields focused on work are well-established. The sociology
of work, for example, gained prominence in the 1960s
Volume XXVIII, Number 1
(Castillo 2000; Abramo and Montero 2000) along with in-
creasingly widespread mass production in core countries
and discourses of modernization and development in the
periphery. In the 1980s, the sociology of work moved toward
a focus on the reorganization of production (Castillo 1996).
Interestingly, with changes in the system of production
(Castillo 1996) and with discussions of “the end of work,”3
anthropologists focused on the other, e.g., survival and
migration strategies of the very poor (Álvarez Leguizamón
2005), and sociologists of work have developed a core set of
theories and methods to look at the “set of collective rela-
tions through which the production of goods and services is
realized” (Castillo 2000:60; translated). They remain focused,
I argue, on a fairly narrow interpretation of capitalism and
its social relations of production, but can be seen as allies of
the growing subfield of the anthropology of work.
Work and Employment
The fact that the anthropology of work does not really
exist as a subfield of anthropology in Argentina brings
attention to the ways in which we construct our research
agendas and how we analyze social problems,4 which are in
turn, as Frederic and Soprano (2005:31) point out, shaped by
national frameworks and problems. While work is not absent
in anthropological studies, it more often shows up as
a marker (in economic explanations) or, in cultural analyses,
as part of the mix in the construction of identities. I argue,
however, that the anthropology of work should be more
central in Argentina, given the prominent place of the worker
in the national history and imagination.
When I refer to work, I realize that I need to clarify
what I mean and define some theoretical boundaries, since
my goal is to bring work conceptually to the center of our
analyses.
First, the focus here is on the social relations of capi-
talist production. By this, my colleagues and I refer to work
as historically and socially constituted in societies in which
capitalist relations of production have been dominant.
Capitalist relations of production are by no means homoge-
neous. On the contrary, our task in the anthropology of
work is to look at the heterogeneity of subjectivities within
capitalist relations of production, as they have been vari-
ously constituted in time and space. We have an opportu-
nity to better understand social complexity through this
form of analysis in the anthropology of work.
As Polanyi (1989) said, capitalism was not just a “great
transformation;” it was complex and heterogeneous. Changes
have not just been at the production level, but have also
established new subjectivities, new social organizations and
relations, and have limited the range of legitimate activities
through which individuals could earn money. Juridical
systems have also changed, providing legal support for new
forms of production and exploitation.
That is how we came to have a work ethic or work
culture. Here, this is understood as the need to earn a living.
In Marxist theory, work culture would mean that the place
one occupies in the chain of production determines the way
in which one sees oneself in relation to the world. The work
9
 Anthropology of Work Review
ethic is an ideology. According to Bauman (2000), there are
two explicit premises and two tacit assumptions in this
capitalist work ethic. The first premise is that in order to get
what you need to live and be happy, it is necessary to do
something that others consider valuable and worthy of
payment. The second premise is that you do not have to be
satisfied with what you have, but that it is always necessary
to seek more. The first tacit assumption is that everyone has
the capacity to offer themselves on the labor market and
make a living by selling their labor. Following that line of
argument, work for cash comes to be seen as a normal con-
dition of life; to be unemployed is, then, considered abnor-
mal. The other tacit assumption imbued in this work ethic is
that only labor that is valued through the market is consid-
ered work; not every activity is considered valuable work in
modern society (Weber 1980, 1999).
Things were not always so. Until the seventeenth
century, work relations were not at the center of social rela-
tions. Work was associated with suffering and humiliation.
Significant changes occurred in the middle of the following
century, when three inseparable processes occurred.5 First
of all, with the ascent of capitalism, mercantile relations be-
came dominant, and “free” manual labor had a key role to
play in those new market relations. Second, in this period,
there arose a dominant view in which civilized and naturally
uncontrolled, or unmanaged, inclinations of humans were
seen as in opposition. Third, economics itself became articu-
lated as its own autonomous domain, with its own logic and
problem-solving capability. All of these came to bear on a new
way of conceptualizing work, with a unified, abstract, and
market-centered meaning, with time being essential to its
definition. Work now became not only a means of subsis-
tence, but also as a fundamental ethic of capitalism and a
mark of excellence and moral obligation for civilized societies.
This new perspective has dominated Western cultures
since the 19th century. Since that time, work has come to be
seen as the true essence of humanity; culture has been re-
duced to work, and to a “secular religion,” as Kunan says
(Nun 2001). Arendt (2003:20) put this similarly when she
stated that work constituted an artificial world, distin-
guished from the natural cycle of life; within its limits each
individual is walled up, and yet it transcends and survives
all individual life. This work ethic is mirrored in the posi-
tions taken up about labor relations and job quality by left-
ist parties over the past century. The focus was not on the
structure of work itself, but on labor relations. In organiza-
tions of unemployed workers, today, we can see this legacy
in their demand for formal-sector work. Their self-reference
as workers, even while they are unemployed, shows how
they construct themselves as subjects. Although what I have
outlined above has been a global process, it has acquired
important differences between countries and regions. In
Argentina, for example, the Unemployed Argentine Workers’
Movement is asking for actual work and not social pro-
grams for the unemployed—for Argentine workers, formal-
sector jobs provide them with dignity and identity.
Recent social, political, and economic transformations
have generated different effects: new labor relations and
the appearance of new jobs, like telemarketing; a rise in
Volume XXVIII, Number 1
temporary employment, or employment without benefits;
and new worker strategies for survival. All of these changes
have to be understood in relation to each other. I propose
that the anthropology of work needs to take into account
certain activities and relations that are not strictly labor con-
siderations, because of this broader social context (Perelman
2004, 2006).
Work, Poverty, and Unemployment
The anthropology of work is a particularly relevant
disciplinary lens to use in understanding the subjective expe-
riences of unemployed people. As I have argued, Argentina
constitutes a special case when it comes to discussing un-
employment, since the identity of ‘worker’ has been tradi-
tionally such a strong identity in the nation. Although
Argentina cannot be considered a welfare society (cf. Castel
1997), it is the case that until the late seventies, the political
and juridical systems supported workers through strong,
collective wage guarantees and workers had the double
protection of good wages and a strong social security system,
which insured that those who retired continued to have
good access to health care and other services. Workers did
not see themselves solely as selling their labor on the mar-
ket, but as contributing to a larger sense of societal security
through their labor. This broad system of social supports for
workers deteriorated in the nineties.
Although the problem of poor areas was “discovered”
in the fifties, and framed in terms of development and un-
derdevelopment (Escobar 1995), poverty was not new—it
was merely redefined in this period of development
programs. As Rahnema (1996) argued, there had been
a rupture in the system of administration of, and interven-
tion in, poverty. Of course, “poverty” does not have just one
meaning, and there are debates about how to conceptualize
poverty and use the concept. (See Gutiérrez 2005; Narayan,
et al. 1999; Rahnema 1996; and Sen 1992.) Escobar (1995)
points out, in relation to the ‘discovery’ of poverty that de-
velopment discourse appeared as a new colonial discourse.
Poverty can be seen as a new configuration of modernity’s
‘other.’ New terms were used to explain poverty and
unemployment—e.g., marginalized and informal sectors
(Álvarez Leguizamón 2005). Because of the intervention of
development discourse, poverty and work began to appear
as unrelated spheres. This gap widened with the passage of
time, especially in the eighties with the structural adjustment
policies of the international lending organizations; poverty
and formal work were completely separated in this frame.
There were effects of this bifurcation in the academy, as well.
Those who focused on studies of poverty tended to consider
how the marginalized survive (cf. Lomnitz Adler 1991) and
their survival strategies (cf. Gutiérrez 2005). Why are these
not also conceptualized as forms of work? In the anthropol-
ogy of work, we can reconnect these discussions and con-
sider unemployment as the marginalization of a formally
central identity: that of the worker. The unemployed are
actively seeking work in the formal sector because of the
ways in which they construct their identities; they are not
simply seeking participation in social welfare or develop-
ment programs.
10
 Anthropology of Work Review
Some Concluding Thoughts
Is everything work? The answer does not necessarily
need to be yes, but it is important to broaden our focus in
the anthropology of work to include some forms of social
relations that have not traditionally been seen as labor
relations. As the participants in the Núcleo de Estudios del
Trabajo, or NET (2005:15) explained, the problem is with the
way work is conceptualized in some academic projects; the
concept of work is not synonymous with “having a job” but
instead needs to be understood in broader terms as part of
the construction of the identities of workers. Work is con-
stantly mentioned in anthropological studies, but the con-
cept needs to be further problematized. We need to study
how different actors conceptualize and contextualize work.
It is important not to split, in our analyses, the survival
strategies of subaltern sectors in capitalist production, re-
production, and consumption, but to see these together in
one frame (Anderson 1991). We need to develop tools to
look critically and ethnographically at the whole, diverse
picture of what it means to be a worker (unemployed or
employed).
When we understand the complex ways in which in-
dividuals construct and reconstruct their realities, and how
their different representations combine and form a network
of social relations, we can better situate the agency of work-
ers and the history of work relations. Indeed, as Rosato and
Balbi (2003) have argued, in focusing on the experience of
individual actors, we have the opportunity to examine the
intersecting modes of politics, religion, economics, etc., in
looking at the world of work.
In using this kind of analysis, we can understand that to
work means subjectively more than exploitation to workers.
It is a whole universe of feelings and relationships that
acquire significance in the individual and collective experi-
ences of the subjects. It is key to understand these aspects of
workers’ lives in our analyses. Since neoliberal reforms
have not occurred in the same ways and had the same
effects globally, it is important to include these interpretive
perspectives in the anthropology of work to understand the
local articulation of global processes (cf. Gupta and Sharma
2006; Trouillot 2001; Ferguson 1994). We need to include
attention to how individuals experience change in their lives
as a result of these policies, and to their actions, strategies, and
interpretations.
In Argentina, the particular configuration of labor
relations (cf. Grassi, et al. 1996; Beccaria 2001); the until-
recently high employment rates; the role of the unions; and
the influence of Peronism have contributed to a view of
work as a natural part of life. Academics have contributed
to this social construction of the normal citizen as a worker.
Now, it is vital to apply our understandings through the
anthropology of work to see how individuals—accustomed
to that naturalized view of the worker—are affected by un-
employment. It is important to include in our analyses mul-
tiple and experiential viewpoints for better understandings of
work as an historical process, anchored in social relations
and the differential experiences of individuals.
Volume XXVIII, Number 1
Acknowledgments
A preliminary version of this article was presented in
the VIII Argentine Congress of Anthropology. I appreciate
the comments of the participants in the symposium on the
“Anthropology of Work.” I would especially like to thank
Gloria Rodriguez and Ann Kingsolver for their readings of,
and comments on, earlier versions of this article.
I must also say, here, that my ideas in this article have
been shaped by my having been trained in the University of
Buenos Aires. They have also been influenced by a number
of conferences and by my conversations with other profes-
sionals interested in themes that we could refer to as in-
cluded in the anthropology of work. I have also been
informed by postgraduate study in a number of national
and Latin American academic institutions.
Notes
1The Permanent Household Survey implemented by
the National Institute of Statistics and Census shows a sig-
nificant drop in employment rates in Greater Buenos Aires
(in and beyond the City of Buenos Aires). Unemployment
rates rose from 2.4% in April, 1975, to 12.6% in the first third
of 2006, having peaked at 22% in May 2002. The rate of un-
deremployment rose from 4.7% in April 1975 to 12.3% in
2006. According to the same survey, in the second half of
2005, 30.5% of individuals (22.5% of households) were living
under the poverty line in Greater Buenos Aires.
2In some speeches, unions were blamed for the hard
times on which the working class had fallen. Unions them-
selves were divided. Some unions participated in reproduc-
ing hegemonic discourses.
3There is a large literature on the “end of work,” and it
is a theme taken up not only in the social sciences, but also
by specialists in marketing and philosophy, for example.
Some of the works that best problematize this topic and
cover the debates on it include de la Garza Toledo and
Neffa (2001); Neffa (2003); and Antunes (2003, 2005).
4It is not within the purview of this article to provide a
full history of Argentine anthropology, or even to summa-
rize all the currents within Argentine ethnography. For such
an overview, see Visacovsky and Guber (2002) and Frederic
and Soprano (2005).
5As Nun (2001) says, capitalist society and, in particular,
neoclassical economics encourage us to see work as wage
work. In the Middle Ages in Europe, work was scorned as
something for the lowest classes or seen as a form of pun-
ishment or penance. But Luther, and then clearly the
Calvinists, placed value on work for other classes. With the
rise of capitalism, especially in Western Europe and the U.S.,
work was moralized through the work ethic particularly for
the middle class.
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