Obrismo, or the exchange of public works projects (obras) for popular goodwill, is a fixture of politics in Latin America. In Lima, Peru, various politicians use aesthetic-semiotic forms like bright colors and snappy hashtags to highlight their concrete contributions to municipal governance. This article examines the specific aesthetic and semiotic operations behind the political alchemy that aims to transform material infrastructures into popular legitimacy. Through digital anthropology of social media, I argue that the aesthetics of obras reveal a populist logic underpinning how infrastructures do politics in Lima. I also suggest that using aesthetic forms to articulate a political constituency like “the people” is a fundamentally unstable political practice. Through colors and hashtags, obras that promise popular legitimacy may instead be resignified, resulting in widespread disapproval. This article therefore uncovers the open-ended populist possibilities of obras to underscore the need to collectively rethink how populism and infrastructures operate in Latin American politics, online and offline.

中文翻译：

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民粹主义基础设施：奥布拉斯如何在秘鲁利马从政的美学和符号学

Obrismo或公共工程项目 ( obras ) 换取大众善意，是拉丁美洲政治的固定内容。在秘鲁利马，许多政客使用鲜艳的色彩和活泼的主题标签等美学符号形式来突出他们对市政治理的具体贡献。本文考察了旨在将物质基础设施转变为大众合法性的政治炼金术背后的特定美学和符号操作。通过社交媒体的数字人类学，我认为obras的美学揭示了基础设施如何在利马发挥政治作用的民粹主义逻辑。我还建议，使用美学形式来表达像“人民”这样的政治选民是一种根本上不稳定的政治实践。通过颜色和标签，承诺大众合法性的obras可能会被重新定义，从而导致广泛的反对。因此，本文揭示了obras的开放式民粹主义可能性，以强调需要集体重新思考民粹主义和基础设施如何在拉丁美洲在线和离线政治中运作。