The Privatization of Altos Hornos Zapla (Palpalá, Jujuy) in the 1990s: Impacts and Social Memory. Social Transformations Through the Lived Experiences of the Actors

Abstract

The privatization of the Altos Hornos Zapla steelmaking center marked the end of a socioeconomic project conceived within the framework of modernity. Until the early 1990s, local decision-making had been monopolized by the state-owned company, even though it shared jurisdiction with the municipality of Palpalá. This later represented the moment of emergence of civil society as a protagonist of social life in Palpalá.

Our work sought to give voice to the evocative processes of the actors who lived through these circumstances, since social memory is selective and therefore meaningful rather than neutral: the recurrence of certain narratives accounts for the record of change. Drawing on data collected through interviews, we present elements fixed in social memory, identifying changes in everyday practices and the ways in which they were addressed.

Produced after privatization, these changes were marked by the crisis of a world of certainties. Differentiated ways of coping with them also emerged, according to the social position and ties of the agents. For the inhabitants of Palpalá, this crisis would have meaning as a starting point in the transformation of the practices and social relations of the agents.

We consider it important to move forward in the analysis of how Palpalá residents registered these changes associated with the privatization of Zapla, in order to study transformations in agency within the framework of the conflictive processes of the 1990s.