Madres y piqueteras. Partecipazione femminile e ambivalenza di ruolo nella crisi alimentare argentina

EYNARD, MARTIN; ROMANIA, VINCENZO

About Gender. Rivista internazionale di studi di genere

Universita degli Studi di Genova

Lugar: Genova; Año: 2017 vol. 6 p. 285 - 305

2279-5057

Thisarticle will explore the dynamics of gender equality in food conflicts occurredin Argentina during the crisis of 2001. The empirical material consists ofinterviews and observations gathered in an investigation about the piqueteromovement (MP) of Cordoba. Women´s participation in these forms of politics andmutual mobilization was decisive, though not adequately recognized. We willfocus in particular on the role played by women during the food crisis inArgentina, in the context of community work. This expression refers to variousforms of work, volunteer or paid, carried out for the benefit of the localcommunities and neighborhoods, in a perspective that fostered the developmentof the local community. According to our interpretation, the involvement ofwomen in the community work of the MP has had a crucial effect on thereconfiguration of gender relations in Argentina. After a brief historicalpresentation and an introduction to the case study, we will try to demonstratehow the conflictual dialectics participation vs. reintegration can be read inview of the structural ambivalence related to gender roles (Merton 1976;Calabrò 1991). And how Argentinian women managed to improve social condition ofmarginalised people, acting on gender roles? ambivalences.