Productive work as political action: daily practices of struggle and work in a Recovered Factory

FERNANDEZ ALVAREZ, MARIA INES

Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology

Society for Latin and Caribbean Anthropology

Año: 2016 vol. 21 p. 254 - 275

1935-4940

Under the name of empresas recuperadas, during the past 10 years experiences of collective management of work were put into practice through the factory occupation by its workers in Argentina. This essay discusses ethnographic research I conducted on recovered factories in Buenos Aires between 2002 and 2005 (the period in which most cases were registered). The study of the workers´ everyday practices showed changes both in the timing and in the activities included in the working day. As a result the "workplace" became a "site of struggle" and, at the same time, struggle actions were organized and signified as a "workplace". Through a particular case, this essay analyzes how productive activities were articulated as protest actions suggesting that the company´s recovery turned into a political action anchored in work production. I discuss the implications of these articulations of "work" and "struggle" in the (re)definition of the relations between workers.