Care is political. Carework, maternalism and strategies of por women in Argentina

LLOBET, VALERIA; FRANCO PATIÑO, SANDRA

Congreso; XXXV CONGRESS LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION; 2017

This paper focuses on the institutional and political transformations of child-care targeting poor children in the Greater Buenos Aires, during the so called ?pink tide? governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. Our goal is to highlight the ways in which the communitarian initiatives for care provision developed by poor women in order to overcome the economical crisis during the late nineties and early 2000?s, was politicized in a discourse that claimed the status of public ?and therefore, worth of state attention- for this care work, and, due to that politization, it was also translated in demands for labor rights for those who worked in communitarian initiatives of child-care. In a context of a political agenda revolving almost exclusively around child poverty, investment in child development, daycare centers (CDI) as children?s rights ?as opposed as working women?s needs- and structural constraints, how can poor women create a space for their needs?