Public space inbetween asphyxia and resistance: Foucault’s uses during the dictatorship in Argentina

Abstract

Although the first readings and appropriations of Michel Foucault’s texts in Argentina date back to the end of the 1950s, this paper analyzes some forms of circulation, reading, interpretation and appropriation of Foucault’s elaborations under the conditions imposed by Argentina’s last military dictatorship. This paper’s principal aim is then to historically rebuilt and analyze some of these appropriations which, between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, appeared within the Social Sciences, in academic debates and in works related to local problems. The hypothesis is that it is possible to see the vitality of an  underground public space that survived even the worst conditions of oppression. Analyzing some of these cases, allows to explore strategic uses of Foucault’s elaborations within the political-intellectual area, extending the margins of a suffocated public space.