Yovanna Pineda

I am applying for the Library Research Fellowship to visit archives and libraries at Columbia University, Duke University, and CalTech to complete research for my book project, Spectacular Bodies: Aesthetics of Labor & Technology in Argentina, 20th Century. This book examines factory town communities' relationship with technology and labor. Drawing on oral histories, informal conversations, archival, ethnographic, and media research, this work is a social and cultural study of workers’ narratives about the technology they use, design, produce, and repair, as well as their acts to preserve this technology. My oral history and ethnographic research occurred across several factories, museums, and towns in Santa Fe and Buenos Aires provinces. The research questions I address are: (1) what meanings did technologies have to curators, teachers, and salaried workers who used, consumed, designed, and curated them? (2) What did the preservation of this technology reveal about the community identity?