„Y te pago; te visto; te doy de comer.“

Disziplinarmechanismen in Roberto Marianis "Cuentos de la oficina" (1925) im Zeichen ökonomischer Umbrüche am Cono Sur

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the Cuentos de la oficina, published by Argentinian writer Roberto Mariani in 1925. Based on Max Weber᾽s reflections on bureaucratic efficacy and Michel Foucault᾽s considerations regarding disciplinary power, selected texts – Balada de la oficina, Rillo, and Santana – will be analyzed in order to identify the disciplinary mechanisms at work as well as their literary representation. The narratives unfolding around the characters of Rillo and Santana take up the promises, demands, and threats that the personified office epically foreshadows in the Balada de la oficina and paint a precarious picture of the Argentinean office worker during the modern capitalism of the 1920s. Based on the above-mentioned concepts developed by Weber and Foucault with a main focus on European Modernity, this article centers around the question in how far these can be applied to Argentinian office literature in order to gain a more thorough understanding of emerging capitalist structures and the disciplinary power enabling these structures. The literary text to be considered, Roberto Mariani’s Cuentos de la oficina, represents the founding text of Argentinian office literature; written by a former office clerk himself, it seems particularly suitable to approach the topic of workplace discipline in an early 20th century bureaucratic context.