The everyday image of a Peronist nation? A discourse analysis of Peronism and power in Buenos Aires street art

On August 24^th 2011 the Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner inaugurated a huge mural of Eva Duarte de Perón, who is better known as Evita, at the top of the ministry of health and development building, in the political centre of Buenos Aires. Around the same time but in a different neighbourhood (Almagro), a group of party-members of the local JP (Juventud Peronista) painted six pannels commemorating the “Bicentenario”, the two-hundred year anniversary of the nation, which represent central symbols of peronist movement such as Evita and the female vote, a topless and strong-build working-class man, Juan Domingo Perón encircled by the sun, and others. As a peronist, Fernández de Kirchner sees herself following the tradition of Evita Perón, who is in turn the Argentinian emblem of a caring, working-class-supporting and nationalist politician.

My M.A.-thesis, which I started writing in September 2011, forms the basis of this paper. Therein I analyze a dozen peronist murals, some painted by official powers, some by  individuals, and over fifty stencils and graffiti which I collected in Buenos Aires in October 2011. With these expressions of autonomous individual and political art I try and search for a better understanding of the strength of the peronist myth which still agitates the whole nation. By doing a discourse analysis of this every day art in three different neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires, I will try to define the aesthetics of the “oficialismo” (government authorities) and its critics and therefore delineate the movements and emotions which are involved in the current power discourse.

(The abstract is also available in Spanish, as I could do the presentation in Spanish or English, as you prefer.)