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Making Citizens in Argentina
Making Citizens in Argentina charts the evolving meanings of citizenship in Argentina from the 1880s to the 1980s. Against the backdrop of immigration, science, race, sport, populist rule, and dictatorship, the contributors analyze the power of the Argentine state and other social actors to set the boundaries of citizenship. They also address how Argentines contested the meanings of citizenship over time, and demonstrate how citizenship came to represent a great deal more than nationality or voting rights. In Argentina, it defined a person’s relationships with, and expectations of, the state. Citizenship conditioned the rights and duties of Argentines and foreign nationals living in the country. Through the language of citizenship, Argentines explained to one another who belonged and who did not. In the cultural, moral, and social requirements of citizenship, groups with power often marginalized populations whose societal status was more tenuous. Making Citizens in Argentina also demonstrates how workers, politicians, elites, indigenous peoples, and others staked their own claims to citizenship.
240 pages, Paperback
Published April 28, 2017
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November 27, 2017
Bryce and Sheinin’s Making Citizens in Argentina looks at identity formation and the control that elites can exercise over issues such as nationalism, social inclusion, social responsibility, and ultimately citizenship. Their definition of citizenship looks outside of the legal and political boundaries that one may otherwise limit such a study too, focusing not only on voting rights, legal status and nationality, but also on civic inclusion and exclusion, as well as the complex web of social interactions that define the lived experience. Therefore their definition of citizenship is less rigid than one might expect and makes for a fascinating read.
The authors in this book use the example of Argentina to show the ways in which the concept of citizenship can be malleable and used as a tool of social control. National identity and citizenship can be manipulated by individuals, the state, and non-state actors in order to gain political and social capital or to undermine that of others. The entire concept of citizenship is a construction, into which the lives of immigrants, women, non-elite men and indigenous peoples are woven and by which their experiences and participation are determined. The definition of what it meant to be ‘argentinidad’ was defined and changed at will by elites, and was used both as an exclusionary and inclusionary tool. For example, during the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Bolivian-Argentinian superstar Ariel Ortega was lauded as an Argentinian hero. However when he was sent off for head-butting an opposition goalkeeper and in turn jeopardizing the national team’s chances of progression, his parents’ identity as Bolivian immigrants was used repeatedly to undermine his own Argentinian identity and he was reimagined in both the media and society as ‘a foreign presence’. In the same way however, in the early portion of the twentieth century migrants were able to set their own terms of civic inclusion and thus their social citizenship by engaging in and organizing social welfare organizations. Although their citizenship was dependent on their social mobility and their economic flexibility, these immigrant groups could define their own role within Argentine society and could effectively buy their citizenship through social spending. These elite migrant groups- primarily German- also gained the power to define citizenship for non-elites in cities such as Buenos Aires, as their heavy involvement in social welfare gave them a degree of social control. Thus the broader definition of citizenship for non-Argentinians and Argentinians alike was completely dependent on class and financial mobility.
The editors also contest that these constructions of citizenship were fundamentally gendered. In an environment in which citizenship was often dependent on being Argentine-born, women who married immigrant men were required to relinquish their citizenship and take up citizenship of their partner’s country of origin. This was later used in order to deport not only those immigrants deemed ‘undesirable’, but also their Argentine-born wives and families. Policy-makers at the time employed typical conservative, family-oriented rhetoric in order to justify this legislation, framing it as ‘preventing the break-up of families’. However what this legislation shows is the second class status that women held in Argentina during the fin de siècle period. Their cultural, political and social membership of Argentine society was completely dependent on marrying an Argentine man, essentially implying that women were not and could not be full ‘citizens’ in the broader sense of the word.
Furthermore, the book demonstrates how the language of citizenship can be used to legitimize and delegitimize other identities. An example of which is seen in the city of Rosario in the first half of the twentieth century, in which the word citizen was used by many politicians in order to avoid using the language of ‘workers’. This essentially placed the idea of citizenship above class identity, which eventually led to the formation of a distinct Argentinian workers movement that was at its core extremely nationalist and reliant on Peron’s authoritarian state.
The extremely fluid definition of what it meant to be Argentinian between 1880 and 2000 shows the fickle nature of national identity in a way that is applicable the world over. For migrants, their families, and even Argentine-born ‘citizens’, their role in society and the definition of their ‘citizenship’ was changed and controlled by elites with vested social interests. Whether it be through the social control exercised by German migrants controlling the welfare system, the conflict between pan-Latin Americanism and European white exceptionalism, eugenic ideas of ‘fitness and the national body’ or the mobilization of a distinct Jewish Argentine identity, citizenship has been redefined and manipulated many times over, and is constantly used as a tool of social control. Bryce and Sheinin, as well as all the contributing authors, raise important questions about nationalism and citizenship that extend far beyond the borders of Argentina.
The authors in this book use the example of Argentina to show the ways in which the concept of citizenship can be malleable and used as a tool of social control. National identity and citizenship can be manipulated by individuals, the state, and non-state actors in order to gain political and social capital or to undermine that of others. The entire concept of citizenship is a construction, into which the lives of immigrants, women, non-elite men and indigenous peoples are woven and by which their experiences and participation are determined. The definition of what it meant to be ‘argentinidad’ was defined and changed at will by elites, and was used both as an exclusionary and inclusionary tool. For example, during the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Bolivian-Argentinian superstar Ariel Ortega was lauded as an Argentinian hero. However when he was sent off for head-butting an opposition goalkeeper and in turn jeopardizing the national team’s chances of progression, his parents’ identity as Bolivian immigrants was used repeatedly to undermine his own Argentinian identity and he was reimagined in both the media and society as ‘a foreign presence’. In the same way however, in the early portion of the twentieth century migrants were able to set their own terms of civic inclusion and thus their social citizenship by engaging in and organizing social welfare organizations. Although their citizenship was dependent on their social mobility and their economic flexibility, these immigrant groups could define their own role within Argentine society and could effectively buy their citizenship through social spending. These elite migrant groups- primarily German- also gained the power to define citizenship for non-elites in cities such as Buenos Aires, as their heavy involvement in social welfare gave them a degree of social control. Thus the broader definition of citizenship for non-Argentinians and Argentinians alike was completely dependent on class and financial mobility.
The editors also contest that these constructions of citizenship were fundamentally gendered. In an environment in which citizenship was often dependent on being Argentine-born, women who married immigrant men were required to relinquish their citizenship and take up citizenship of their partner’s country of origin. This was later used in order to deport not only those immigrants deemed ‘undesirable’, but also their Argentine-born wives and families. Policy-makers at the time employed typical conservative, family-oriented rhetoric in order to justify this legislation, framing it as ‘preventing the break-up of families’. However what this legislation shows is the second class status that women held in Argentina during the fin de siècle period. Their cultural, political and social membership of Argentine society was completely dependent on marrying an Argentine man, essentially implying that women were not and could not be full ‘citizens’ in the broader sense of the word.
Furthermore, the book demonstrates how the language of citizenship can be used to legitimize and delegitimize other identities. An example of which is seen in the city of Rosario in the first half of the twentieth century, in which the word citizen was used by many politicians in order to avoid using the language of ‘workers’. This essentially placed the idea of citizenship above class identity, which eventually led to the formation of a distinct Argentinian workers movement that was at its core extremely nationalist and reliant on Peron’s authoritarian state.
The extremely fluid definition of what it meant to be Argentinian between 1880 and 2000 shows the fickle nature of national identity in a way that is applicable the world over. For migrants, their families, and even Argentine-born ‘citizens’, their role in society and the definition of their ‘citizenship’ was changed and controlled by elites with vested social interests. Whether it be through the social control exercised by German migrants controlling the welfare system, the conflict between pan-Latin Americanism and European white exceptionalism, eugenic ideas of ‘fitness and the national body’ or the mobilization of a distinct Jewish Argentine identity, citizenship has been redefined and manipulated many times over, and is constantly used as a tool of social control. Bryce and Sheinin, as well as all the contributing authors, raise important questions about nationalism and citizenship that extend far beyond the borders of Argentina.
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