In Search of the Lost Decade: Everyday Rights in Post-dictatorship Argentina

The 1980s transition to democracy in Argentina has traditionally been the realm of political scientists and, lately, historians interested in the constitutional restoration of the state, elections, and the rise of human rights organizations in search of justice for the victims of state violence. In six concise chapters, Jennifer Adair opens new ground by redefining the study of the period with a social history anchored in Buenos Aires and focused on food as a human right. In chapters 1 and 2, Adair demonstrates that food insecurity, resulting from a context of deindustrialization, unemployment, inflation, and debt crisis, was a common characteristic of everyday life during the military dictatorship (1976–83), and consequently access to food was a central demand of the labor protests and community uprisings that started in 1981. Hunger and the increasing public discussion and denunciation of it revealed the very palpable, widespread economic and social violence of the...