"Usted vino por su propia decisión": repensar el clientelismo en clave etnográfica

by comparing two relational sets of popular neighborhoods placed in two argentine provinces -buenos aires and santiago del estero- we explore, from an ethnographic point of view, some dimensions of people's political experiences. we centre our analysis on a debate that has recently occupied social sciences: the association between popular politics and the circulation of social assistance policies. this association often invokes "clientelism" as an explanatory category. based on the analysis of our field observations, we discuss a set of assumptions contained in that category from which social scientists assume specific politics in contexts of poverty.