Recovered factories in Argentina: Every day practices of struggle and work

FERNÁNDEZ ALVAREZ, MARÍA INÉS

Washington, DC

Congreso; XXXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association; 2013

Latin American Studies Association

Under the name of empresas recuperadas (recovered factories), during the past 10 years experiences of collective management of work were put into practice through the factory occupation by its workers in Argentina. These experiences took place in companies that were heavily indebted or bankrupt and the process of demand construction was oriented to the "defense of the work source". In this paper I review my ethnographic study on recovered factories in Buenos Aires that took place between 2002 and 2005, the period in which the highest number of cases was registered. The ethnographic study of the workers every day practices showed changes in the timing as well as in the activities included in the working day. As a result of these changes the "workplace" became a "site of struggle". At the same time, the "site of struggle" (protests, camping, blocking of streets, etc) was defined as a "workplace", and consequently, regulated, organized and signified as such. Through the reconstruction of a particular case, this paper analyzes the way in which productive activities were articulated as protest actions. I suggest that the recovery of the company took the form of a political action anchored in production, a productive work. Based on this analysis I discuss the implications of these articulations of "work" and "struggle" in the (re)definition of the relations between workers.