The production of meaning around the organisation of care in popular neighbourhoods in Gran San Miguel de Tucumán, Tucumán-Argentina.

Abstract

After the great crisis of 2001, Argentina witnessed a notorious increase in poverty and inequality, phenomena that became particularly aggressive in the Northwest of the country. In this context, the Greater San Miguel de Tucumán agglomerate, in the province of Tucumán, is fragmented, with informal settlements that suffer exclusion, stigmatization and marginalization. When poverty conditions aggravate, and the support of the State is lacking, solidarity alternatives emerge and play a fundamental role: community care. Since these tasks are usually left almost exclusively in the hands of women, this paper aims to investigate the development of their daily lives. For this purpose, a group of women from La Toma neighborhood, municipality of Tafí Viejo, Tucumán, is taken as a case study. This group is organized for community activities and improvements in their neighborhood. The main objective is to understand their collective logics of subsistence and care dynamics. Special attention is paid to discover where the perceptions of its space come from, the ways of inhabiting it, the relations with the different actors, and the roles assumed or assigned. Through this analysis, it becomes evident that these women stand out within their community, and the dynamics of existing power relations are clarified. The discursivities remain in tension, as well as the physical and symbolic spaces, whatever those that have germinated from the response of women to their invisibilization.