Actions and images on urban poverty in Buenos Aires and Seattle

In this article we analyze the relational construction of the middle class from a comparative study between Seattle and Buenos Aires during the period of relative recovery of the socioeconomic crisis. With the theory of relational poverty as a conceptual axis, we understand that class subjectivities are reproduced or challenged through interactions that cross or confront the boundaries between social groups. Our analysis reveals that poverty is a key point for the formation of middle-class groups in both countries and that poverty can produce alternative readings of the formation of the middle class in the United States and Argentina.