The Need for Patience

In this paper I explore the attempt to organize in order to secure permanent housing among poor urban families in Buenos Aires who reside temporarily in government-subsidized welfare hotels. My aim is to examine the passage that appears to take place between the ever-present tropes of “need” (and being assisted) and of “patience” (and being an activist in an autonomous and project-oriented movement) in the families’ experience of time as they embark collectively in this endeavor. I argue that as activists strive to move away from the subject position of asistido into which social programs seem to place them, they assume a political engagement that requires “patience,” a kind of work necessary for overriding the feeling of urgency often connected with a condition of need.