Popular politics, spatiality and recent historical transformations in the southern area of ​​Greater Buenos Aires. Interview with Jerónimo Pinedo

Abstract

The politics of the popular sectors and their imbrications in the Argentine historical and political processes is an issue that has attracted the attention of numerous investigations in the field of social sciences in our country. In recent years, hand in hand with the contributions of critical geography and the way in which political anthropology recovered it to address different issues, social studies in Argentina incorporated greater reflexivity about the spatial dimension of historical processes and politicians. The book      Zona Sur. Urdimbres de la acción colectiva popular en el Gran Buenos Aires. (1974-1989), by Jerónimo Pinedo, is part of that movement. This text reproduces the conversation we had with Jerónimo Pinedo in October 2023 at the Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences of the National University of La Plata. The interview revolved around the research that underpins the book. In particular, we look at the process of construction of the object of study, the questions that gave rise to the research work on popular political action in the southern zone and the methodological challenges involved in the analysis of sources such as the archive of the former Directorate of Intelligence of the Police of the Province of Buenos Aires. At the same time, the journey through different conflicts, actors and historical periods that are analyzed in the book – among them, the workers' conflicts in the Rigolleau and Peugeot factories in the 1970s, the creation of the diocese of Quilmes during the last dictatorship military and its articulation with the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, and the land seizures that took place towards the end of the 1980s – made it possible to make intelligible the diversity of dialogues that Jerónimo establishes with an extensive academic and multidisciplinary legacy on political action popular.