Volver al futuro. Los refundaciones discursivas en la Argentina contemporánea (2001-2015)

• Main Author: Mariano Dagatti
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Ateneo Cantonal de Estudios Políticos 2017-05-01
• Series: Pensamiento al Margen
• Subjects: Political Discourse; Kirchnerism
• Online Access: https://www.pensamientoalmargen.com/mariano-dagatti/

This paper offers some new results in a long-run research in the area of Political Rhetoric. The chief aim has been to elucidate the nature of discourse hegemony and political identities in XXI Century Argentina. The specific aim is to describe the foundational gestures of two winning electoral coalitions, the Peronist-Kircherist FPV and the insurgent Cambiemos-PRO (nowadays in office). We assume they offer clues, within the framework of constitutive rhetoric, in order to understand which discourse space new governments are designing for the Argentine political field to cope with the global challenges of the post-2001 crisis. In short, we aim to study how political discourses bet through rhetoric on performing groups. Our research suggests that each political formation constructs a present narrative in relation both to a vindicated past and a repudiated one, as well as in relation with a desired future. For Kirchnerists, this meant building a clear-cut rhetorical antinomy, based upon the trope of anachronism, between the prophetical figment of national capitalism and the neo liberal utopia of the previous years. On the other hand, Cambiemos-Pro designs a 'futuristic' discourse space that envisions a "21st Century Argentina" laboriously built on the ruins left by the Kirchner's dynastic cleptocracy and crony-capitalism. The apologetics of the future is, in this sense, proportional to the alleged uselessness of a rejected past.