This article aims at understanding the process of professionalization of expert knowledge in the Human Rights' field in Argentina. The institutionalization of the Human Rights cause involves both a change in the professional law field and the transformation of the militant cause into a question of specialized knowledge that increasingly requires more technical expertise. Throughout the study of the deep transformation that took place during two generations of law activists and professionals, this article discusses the place of education and expert knowledge in the acquisition of new credentials that qualify individuals to participate in this universe. This paper looks into changes in these activists' profile through time, in lawyers profiles' reconversion, a process that involves from the earliest lawyers that joined politics and started their carrers as political prisoners 'defenders belonging to revolutionary groups during the 60s and 70s to the new generation of activists who started their careers and joined politics after democracy (1983) and who have based their legitimacy on academic degrees in international law and their simultaneously belonging to the academic and bureocratic scenes, as well as transnational activism.
expertise; human rights; Argentina; activism; educational capital