This afternoon’s reading group (5pm, the Railway Club) and tonight’s talk (7pm, SFU Harbor Center) with Javier Auyero are going to be quite something.
For those who haven’t had time to look at his book, co-written with Débora Alejandra Swistun, Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown, here are a couple of shorter pieces available online:
- Javier Auyero, “‘Pacientes del Estado’: Un reporte etnográfico sobre la espera de la gente pobre”
- Javier Auyero and Deborah Swistun, “The Social Production of Toxic Uncertainty”
I especially like the first of these, which deals with the experience of waiting and the way in which the fact that they are endlessly having to wait is an integral part of the domination of the poor. The ministerial or governmental waiting room is a crucial space in the exercise of power. As the article argues:
During the long hours that they spend in the Ministry of Social Development in search of a solution to their urgent needs, the poor feel the effects of uncertainty, confusion, and arbitrariness. I suggest that, collectively, these “experiences of waiting” convince the indigent of the need to be “patient,” transmitting thereby the implicit pre-requisite for them to take on the condition of docile beneficiaries. An analysis of the socio-cultural dynamic of waiting, therefore, helps us understand how (and why) such beneficiaries become not citizens but rather “patients” of the State.
Auyero draws on Bourdieu for his argument, but it also makes me think of Gilles Deleuze’s observations on “tiredness and waiting.”
Anyhow, we look forward to seeing you at the reading group and talk.