Ethnic Intermediation in Contemporary Buenos Aires

Scholarship on ethnic intermediation has paid much attention to how demographically important but socioeconomically disenfranchised groups broker power within various geopolitical contexts. But it has not yet unpacked how intermediation operates among electorally small yet economically prosperous communities. Contemporary Buenos Aires offers a series of case studies in which visible, affluent ethnodiasporas have had considerable success making sustained claims and reallocating state resources. Drawing from extensive fieldwork and over 35 interviews with community leaders, this article argues that small, well-organized groups rely on ethnic elite intermediaries - that is, ethnic activists who serve in executive-appointed, non-elected positions - to make sustained claims and reallocate state resources on behalf of ethnic organizational interests. The analysis introduces ethnic elite intermediaries in the context of Armenian and Jewish Argentines during the Kirchner and Macri presidencies, respectively.