Pyrrhic nationals: The promise and pitfalls of masculine civic belonging in Argentina

Abstract

In this article I discuss an Argentine workfare program as an entry point to challenge dominant understandings of the relationship between masculinity and the nation‐state. By examining this program as it is enacted in Huerta Maipú, a community farm in the outskirts of Córdoba, Argentina, I explore how materializing nationally appropriate masculinity can impede the realization of the substantive benefits associated with national inclusion. Drawing upon Lauren Berlant's (2011) Cruel Optimism, I develop the concept of Pyrrhic Nationals to describe this dynamic. My argument builds upon a subordinated approach to understanding masculinity which I put into conversation with anthropological analyses of the role of civil society in neoliberal regimes. Even though Huerta Maipú was explicitly constructed as an anti‐market, anti‐capitalist and anti‐patriarchal site, materializing masculinities through social and community activism entailed becoming the exact subjects required by neoliberal projects.