Social Life of Politics

Sian Lazar is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of El Alto, Rebel City: Self and Citizenship in Andean Bolivia (2008), among other books.

• Introduction1. The State and theUnions in Space and Time2. Militancia: An Ethics and Politics of the Self3. Family and Intergenerational Transmission of Militancia4. Pedagogy and Political Community5. Containment as Care6. Containment as Political EncompassmentConclusion

"Bringing the new anthropology of ethics to bear on the lives of union activists, Sian Lazar provides fresh insight into the moral foundations of political commitment and collective identity. Her nuanced approach to politics expands our understanding of the ethical. This book opens up fertile new terrain."—Webb Keane, author of Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories "The Social Life of Politics brings a sensitively deployed interdisciplinary approach to the study of Argentine trade unionism in the contemporary era. Lazar's fine blend of ethnographic research, theoretical sophistication and genuine compassion for trade unionists offers fresh insight into activism and political identity in the complex and shifting context of modern Argentina and Peronism. Latin Americanists and all who are interested in the emerging international contours of labor in the era of neoliberalism are in her debt."—Daniel James, Indiana University Bloomington "Written primarily for academic and graduate student audiences, The Social Life of Politics makes a number of key contributions to anthropological scholarship....[Lazar's] book is a theoretically compelling work that will no doubt provide a great source of inspiration for anthropologists studying subjectivation, kinship, union organizing, and class-based social movements."—Marcos Mendoza, American Ethnologist "[A] rich ethnographic portrait of the internal dynamics of two public sector unions in Argentina....[Offers] key insights into an overlooked element of the anthropology of bureaucracy."—Brandon Hunter-Pazzara, Political and Legal Anthropology Review