Self-made school and the everyday making in Buenos Aires slums

Abstract

A governmentality ethnographic approach is adopted to examine the everyday making of school in Buenos Aires slums. By addressing events at the intersection of the life of school and of the neighborhood, in this article we problematize schooling – how it is put together and the tensions that beset it on a daily basis. The notion of the self-made school is proposed as a way to delve into how management society calls on the population to manage itself. We identify micro-procedures that take the shape of silent struggles to turn the school/neighborhood into a place to live. As a hypothesis, we propose that school is produced at the intersection of everyday struggles and the struggle for the everyday in the context of the precarization of life in the age of management. From a methodological standpoint what are at play are not dichotomies, but rather the stickiness and tension of daily practices.

Keywords:

• Self-made schools
• slums
• governmentality
• managerial age
• responsibility
• everyday struggles

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We cannot delve into this issue here. On this this topic, see, among others, O’Donnell (1976), Brunner (1981), Garretón (1984), Lechner (1988), Borón (1977), and Puello-Socarrás (2017), Felipe (2010).

2. See Accessed 16 Jan 2018. https://www.filmaffinity.com/ar/film399474.html

3. See, among others, ‘Why Teachers Are Like Coaches’ (Accessed 24 Jan 2018. http://www.globalteacherprize.org/why-teachers-are-like-coaches/), O’Neil and Hopkins (2002), and Stellwagen (1997).

4. Readings of the sort at stake in, for instance, the efficient schools approaches (Bàez 1994) and what are currently called schools in challenging circumstances (Harris 2010).

5. While we look to De Certeau (2000), here the notion of making refers critically to the idea of the self-made, as well as the possibility of procuring elements for that cartography.

6. In the words of Deleuze and Guattari (2005, 409): ‘There may be a greater or lesser number of intermediate states between the molecular and the molar; there may be a greater or lesser number of exterior forces or organizing centers participating in the molar form. Doubtless, these two factors are in an inverse relation to each other and indicate limit-cases. For example, the molar form of expression may be of the “mold” type, mobilizing a maximum of exterior forces; or it may be of the “modulation” type, bringing into play only a minimum number of them. Even in the case of the mold, however, there are nearly instantaneous, interior intermediate states between the molecular content that assumes its own specific forms and the determinate molar expression of the outside by the form of the mold. Conversely, …’

7. Due to considerations of space, we will not dwell on a description of the neighborhood here. On that topic, see Grinberg (2011).

8. Looking to Simondon, the authors of A Thousand Plateaus explain that we are not before a hylomorphic model with two defined terms or ends of a chain, not before ‘a simple relation of molding behind which there is a perpetually variable, continuous modulation that it is no longer possible to grasp,’ but rather in between those two extremes in an intermediate dimension or ‘a space unto itself that deploys its materiality through matter, a number unto itself that propels its traits through form’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1995, 4009).

9. I use the plural because the situation was experienced not only by me, but by other members of the Centre for Studies in Inequalities, Subjectivities and Institutions (CEDESI)/ Laboratory of Human Sciences Research, School of Humanities, National University of San Martin (UNSAM).

10. In this shantytown, like many others, improvised passageways serve as streets.

11. For considerations of space, we will not delve into the minutiae of those policies here, except to point out that in 2013 Law 14581 was passed. Its aim was to guarantee and to promote the creation bodies representing students, specifically students’ centers (Accessed 12 Dec 2017. http://www.gob.gba.gov.ar/legislacion/legislacion/l-14581.html)

12. This teacher understood that any interruption in the school year significantly increases the risk that students will drop out.

13. For considerations of space, we cannot address this complex question here. See, among others, Mantiñan (2018).

14. See Accessed 23 Nov 2017. http://noticias.unsam.edu.ar/2012/10/15/observatorio-ambiental-carcova-en-busca-de-un-futuro-mejor/

15. While I was finishing this article, President Trump used the term shit-hole in reference to a number of Third World countries.

16. In another context, Sadlier (2018) speaks of the gathering.

17. I am here following Accessed 17 Jan 2018. http://www.glocalismjournal.net/