Occupy, Resist, Produce! Social Movements and the Institutionalization of New Practices

In this paper we discus the role of social movements in re-codifying the institutions and meaning of work by focusing on the widespread takeovers and recovery of enterprises by their workers in Argentina during the first decade of 2000. Drawing on literature in social movements and organisation theory on the efficaciousness of movements in bringing about social or political change via narrative, dialogue, interpretation, discourse and ideology, we consider how discursive practices are an aspect of the (changing) subjectivity of workers. Based on archival research and multi-sited longitudinal fieldwork in Argentina during the decade, we show how, through a set of events a space was opened up in the discursive field that allowed the workers to re-articulate the social order within which work was conceptualised to incorporate ‘autonomy’ as the hallmark of its meaning structure.