Dissertation Title:
Developing Consumers: A History of Wants and Needs in Postwar South America

Pablo Pryluka is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History. He is a modern Latin American and global historian interested in the intersection of public policy, economic expectations, and the history of commodities. His research looks at the unintended social and political consequences of developmentalism through the lens of consumption. His dissertation focuses on the years after World War II when Latin American countries simultaneously expanded the welfare state and implemented import substitution policies. As a result, countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Chile experienced domestic market growth: as incomes increased, so did access to new durable goods that would transform everyday life. The dissertation explores how people experienced this transformation by looking at their unequal access to those durable goods, with a particular focus on refrigerators, automobiles, and televisions. He is interested not only in who had access to these goods, but also both the meanings involved in their consumption and the expectations of consumers in terms of socioeconomic status.

Prior to Princeton, he did his undergraduate studies at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and earned a master’s in History at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. He has received grants from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (Argentina), the Fulbright Commission, the Hagley Museum, and the Hartman Center (Duke University).