The Walls of the Labyrinth: Impunity, Corruption, and the Limits of Politics in Contemporary Argentina

This dissertation looks at contemporary forms of social protest in Argentina. The ethnographic focus is on two groups. One of these is Memoria Activa, which developed following the 1994 bombing of an important local institution, the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Society (AMIA). Their demands center on the need for a serious investigation and justice in the attack, which remains unresolved. The other group I discuss is the Cooperativa BAUEN. Part of a broader phenomenon know as the recuperated businesses movement, this workers' cooperative was formed by a set of former employees from a central Buenos Aires hotel after its closure in 2001. The cooperative, which took control of the installation and reopened its operations under their own direction, remains engaged in a prolonged struggle with opposing economic and political forces over the legitimacy and effects of their actions.