POSSIBLE SEMIOTIC WORLDS OF THE TUPAC AMARU NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION’S EXTERNAL ACTORS

Abstract

This paper is aimed at providing an outline of the possible semiotic worlds of the external actors of the Tupac Amaru Neighborhood Association, so as to obtain a signification and interpretation context for the organization. This context shall be then contrasted to and complemented by the existence of certain ‘street university' moods detected in the chosen organization, thus moving forward in the analysis of this scenario.
Interviews were conducted to a group of over 18-year-old men and women who are not direct members of the organization -so called external actors.
The answers were analyzed following a symbolic semiotics approach and applying the following semiotic operations: normalization, segmentation, development of contextual definitions and axis and the conformation of contrastive networks. A given community is said to be represented by and to interpret the environmental phenomena through its social discourse. Discourse is defined as each event that constructs the topic it talks about: it is a (limited) array of statements which depend on the same discursive formation, and exist under a set of existence conditions (Foucault, 1970).
This study is aimed at obtaining information on how the organization is perceived by the people in general and this paper introduces the first stage in the research.
The results obtained will then make possible to go on investigating the organization's objectives and its members' opinions. The contrast between the Possible Semiotic Worlds, both external and internal, will allow us obtaining relevant data about how Jujuy's society interprets the organization under analysis, and also about how the organization interprets itself.
The research carried out inside the organization so far has allowed identifying teaching-learning issues, such as the existence of careers supported by Construction Cooperatives (in which knowledge is mainly achieved through imitation - Conte y Paolucci, 2001), and the transmission of values related to education, social rehabilitation and work.