Murga as Mobilization: Cultural Resistance to Neoliberalism in Buenos Aires

Abstract:This article investigates the relationship between the rebirth, reinvention, and proliferation of a carnivalesque street practice known as murga and neoliberal shifts in the metropolis of Buenos Aires, Argentina. I argue that a new generation of murgueros has adopted and reinvented murga as a result of neoliberal transformations of public space and neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and as a form of resistance to those changes. My analysis explores “doing” murga as an artistic practice in public and “being” in the murga troupe Cachengue y Sudor. For the former, murgueros in Cachengue y Sudor have refashioned murga as a means of reclaiming public space in Buenos Aires in the face of a pervasive climate of inseguridad, increasing regulation and fragmentation of public space, and city residents’ greater reliance on the private sphere. For the latter, Cachengue y Sudor operates as a nonlocalized community for murgueros experiencing a lack of social engagement and an environment of suspicion, mistrust, and alienation in their neighborhoods. Finally, I draw attention to how murga in its reinvented form represents a novel and important model of collective protest that has been largely overlooked in academic literature.