Migración y trabajo. Incidencia del cooperativismo en migrantes bolivianas en Argentina

Abstract

This research work has been developed after carrying out preprofessional practices within a cooperative of women weavers, located in the shantytown known as Villa 31 in the neighborhood of Retiro in the City of Buenos Aires. This research shows how an individual’s work represents not only a way to survive, materially speaking, but also a potential space to create one’s personal identity. Cooperative work enables migrants to creatively overcome the difficult situation of being a migrant: they gather round their capacity of developing an activity connected to some knowledge acquired in their country of birth. Besides, the cooperative eventually becomes a place where they belong to and, as such, it enables them to build a collective identity. By becoming cooperative members artisan women legitimate their work in Argentina. This is possible due to the important recognition that cooperatives have achieved in this country by being strongly promoted by the Argentine government and its public policies of social inclusion by means of work [“Inclusión social con trabajo”]. However, there is still one problem to be solved, and that is the unequal capacity of negotiation between cooperative producers and the market intermediaries (who have access to wealthy markets) which has the effect of a high capital gain only for the market intermediaries. Two different situations coexist in the experience of working in a cooperative: the reciprocal bonding within the cooperative and the unequal situations in the relationship with the market.