scholarly journals Organizaciones sociales en el barrio de La Boca: cambios y permanencias en un contexto de crisis / Social Organizations in the La Boca Neighborhood: Changes and Permanence in a Context of Crisis

2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilda Herzer ◽  
Carla Rodríguez ◽  
Adriana Redondo ◽  
María Mercedes Di Virgilio ◽  
Fernando Ostuni

En este trabajo se analizan las transformaciones que los comedores populares –un tipo de organización social que crece exponencialmente en el barrio de La Boca, área sur de la ciudad de Buenos Aires–, han experimentado en su lógica y en sus acciones como producto de la profundización de la crisis argentina entre 1999 y 2002. En este contexto el barrio aparece como un espacio natural de acción y organización; se convierte en el lugar de interacción de distintos actores y organizaciones de base donde la militancia social territorial se reviste de nuevas características. Allí los comedores se unen a un haz, por demás heterogéneo, que reúne a otras organizaciones provenientes de diferentes horizontes políticos.Más allá de los efectos más evidentes de empobrecimiento ligados a las crisis, ¿por qué y para qué se multiplican los comedores populares? En este artículo se intenta establecer su incidencia como complemento de los recursos obtenidos por las familias de bajos ingresos y determinar otras implicaciones sociopolíticas propias de su participación en el entramado barrial. Para ello se desarrolla un análisis comparativo a partir de un sondeo en organizaciones sociales barriales y entrevistas en profundidad realizadas en los años 1999 y 2002. La caracterización de ambos momentos permite analizar algunas tendencias: los cambios en los procesos de institucionalización, las actividades que desarrollan tales organizaciones y los criterios de autoorganización o prestación de servicios.Se delimita de este modo un lugar particular que permite caracterizar la emergencia de nuevas mediaciones sociopolíticas en el contexto de la crisis. La relación con el Estado –mediante el análisis de algunos programas alimentarios que el Gobierno de la Ciudad echa a andar o que intensifica a partir de la crisis, y que tienen a estos comedores como uno de sus ejecutores privilegiados– constituye una variable clave para comprender este lugar. AbstractThis paper examines the transformations that popular kitchens –a type of social organization that has increased exponentially in the La Boca neighborhood, an area in the south of Buenos Aires–, has experienced in its logic and actions as a result of the exacerbation of the Argentinean crisis between 1999 and 2000. Within this context, the neighborhood emerges as natural sphere of action and organization, becoming a forum of interaction between various actors and grass-roots organizations where social-territorial militancy assumes a variety of characteristics. There, popular kitchens are linked to a single, heterogeneous group comprising other organizations from different political horizons.Beyond the most obvious effects of impoverishment linked to the crisis, why have popular kitchens proliferated? This article seeks to establish their incidence as a complement to the resources obtained by low-income families and to determine other socio-political implications characteristic of their participation in the neighborhood network. To this end, it undertakes a comparative analysis on the basis of a survey of neighborhood social organizations and in-depth interviews carried out in 1999 and 2002. The description of both moments enables certain trends to be analyzed: the changes in the processes of institutionalization, the activities undertaken by these organizations and the characteristics of self-organization or service provision.In this way, the authors delimit a particular place which enables the emergence of new socio-political mediations to be characterized in the context of the crisis. The relationship with the state, through the analysis of certain food programs implemented by the City Government or intensified as a result of the crisis, of which popular kitchens are a vital element, constitute a key variable for understanding this place.

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2199635
Author(s):  
Lucrecia Bertelli

Buenos Aires, under the city administration of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, has recently implemented an ambitious social and territorial integration project in Villa 31 and other low-income settlements within the city. The mayor and his team have circulated the project in prestigious universities and urban forums while talking about Buenos Aires as ‘a global city’. When discussing the design of this integration initiative, the mayor referred to London’s Borough Market, New York’s High Line and Medellín’s Parque Biblioteca. This paper examines the role of policy circulation on the change in discourse and practice towards low-income settlements in Buenos Aires, as well as its relation to the making of a world-class city. I argue that: (a) policy change has been the result of a complex assemblage of artifacts and individuals that mobilise successes, a process that is increasingly South-South; (b) the city government drew its inspiration from urban policies adopted by other cities, not only for the urbanisation project itself, but for approaches to internationalise the initiative; (c) Buenos Aires is using this project as an opportunity to world itself as an integrated city. By doing so, this research adds value to the policy mobility scholarship, since Latin American cities are not only worlding themselves through mega urban developments but also through the circulation of singular ‘world-class’ imaginaries.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Diesselhorst

This article discusses the struggles of urban social movements for a de-neoliberalisation of housing policies in Poulantzian terms as a “condensation of the relationship of forces”. Drawing on an empirical analysis of the “Berliner Mietenvolksentscheid” (Berlin rent referendum), which was partially successful in forcing the city government of Berlin to adopt a more progressive housing policy, the article argues that urban social movements have the capacity to challenge neoliberal housing regimes. However, the specific materiality of the state apparatus and its strategic selectivity both limit the scope of intervention for social movements aiming at empowerment and non-hierarchical decision-making.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-482
Author(s):  
George W. Zuo

I present evidence on the relationship between broadband pricing and labor market outcomes for low-income individuals. Specifically, I estimate the effects of a Comcast service providing discounted broadband to qualifying low-income families. I use a triple differences strategy exploiting geographic variation in Comcast coverage, individual variation in eligibility, and temporal variation pre- and postlaunch. Local program availability increased employment rates and earnings of eligible individuals, driven by greater labor force participation and decreased probability of unemployment. Internet use increased substantially where the program was available. (JEL I32, J22, J31, L82, L86)


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiayun Yin ◽  
Dongfang Wang ◽  
Zhihua Li ◽  
Yuesheng Huang

This longitudinal study investigated the role of psychological difficulties and self-efficacy in the relationship between family cumulative risk and hope among children from low-income families. The participants were 392 Chinese children from low-income families; the study extended for 2 years, and participants completed data that were collected with the following questionnaires: the Family Cumulative Risk Index, Children's Hope Scale, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire-Difficulties subscale, and General Self-efficacy Scale. The results demonstrated that psychological difficulties played a mediating role in the relationship between family cumulative risk and hope; specifically, family cumulative risk predicted hope of children via psychological difficulties. Self-efficacy moderated the relationship between psychological difficulties and hope. This moderation supported “a drop in the ocean effect”; the protective effect of high self-efficacy worked only when psychological difficulties were at low levels. When psychological difficulties were at high levels, the buffering effect of self-efficacy on family cumulative risk was gradually weakened and eventually lost.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey P. Thompson ◽  
Elias Leight

Abstract This paper uses US state panel data to explore the relationship between the share of income received by affluent households and the level of income and earnings received by low and middle-income families. A rising top share of income can potentially lead to increases in the incomes of low and middle-income families if economic growth is sufficiently responsive to increases in inequality. A substantial literature on the impacts of inequality on economic growth exists, but has failed to achieve consensus, with various studies finding positive impacts, negative impacts, and no impacts on growth from increased levels of income inequality. This paper departs from that literature by exploring the effect of inequality on the standard of living of middle-income and low-income families. In the context of rising inequality, increased overall growth is not necessarily a suitable proxy for overall standard of living, since growth patterns are not uniform for the entire income distribution. The results of this study indicate that increases in the top share of income (particularly the top one percent) are associated with declines in the actual incomes (and earnings) of middle income families, but have no clear impact on families at the bottom of the income distribution.


Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (9) ◽  
pp. 2087-2106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crispian Fuller ◽  
Karen West

This paper seeks to provide a conceptual framework in which to examine the social practices of contemporary austerity programmes in urban areas, including how these relate to different conceptions of crisis. Of current theoretical interest is the apparent ease with which these austerity measures have been accepted by urban governing agents. In order to advance these understandings we follow the recent post-structuralist discourse theory ‘logics’ approach of Glynos and Howarth (2007), focusing on the relationship between hegemony, political and social logics, and the subject whose identificatory practices are key to understanding the form, nature and stability of discursive settlements. In such thinking it is not only the formation of discourses and the mobilisation of rhetoric that are of interest, but also the manner in which the subjects of austerity identify with these. Through such an approach we examine the case of the regeneration/economic development and planning policy area in the city government of Birmingham (UK). In conclusion, we argue that the logics approach is a useful framework through which to examine how austerity has been uncontested in a city government, and the dynamics of acquiescence in relation to broader hegemonic discursive formations.


2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 616-657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander J. Fisher

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the city government of Augsburg, Germany, struggled to maintain religious peace as the confessional boundaries between its Catholic and Protestant communities hardened. As tensions gradually rose, city officials feared and scrutinized the disruptive potential of the psalms and chorales sung by Augsburg's Protestant majority. Those suspected of owning, singing, or distributing inflammatory songs were subject to imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and exile. When an Imperial decree established a fully Catholic city government in March 1629, the authorities tightened this scrutiny, banning Protestant singing entirely in public and private and using a network of informants to catch violators. A remarkably well-preserved collection of criminal interrogation records in Augsburg dramatizes city officials' concern about religious song and their attempts to restrict its cultivation through coercive measures. These records, which preserve the testimony of suspects and witnesses as well as original evidence (such as manuscript or printed songs), show the ways in which local authorities tried to control singing that they felt threatened the public peace. At the same time, these sources give us unparalleled insight into the production, performance, and circulation of religious songs. Although the interrogations reveal much about how and where songs——often contrafacta of well-known psalms or chorales——were written and performed, the authorities were especially intent on finding out how they originated, who bought, sold, and sang them, and why. These exchanges between interrogators and suspects provide a starting point for an analysis of the relationship between singing, religion, and criminality in an early modern urban environment.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Saeed Hossain ◽  
Md. Mahmudul Alam ◽  
Niaz Ahmed Khan

Generally in the city areas of developing countries, children from the poor and low income families are involved in a range of risky, unhealthy, and environmentally hazardous economic activities and trades. One of these common activities concerns collecting recyclable waste form the street or landfill areas. To understand the socioeconomic characteristics of these waste collector children, this study collected data from fifty children who engaged in waste collection in the landfill of Matuail in Dhaka City, Bangladesh. The data were collected by questionnaire guide, and the samples were selected based on convenient random sampling. This study analyses the socioeconomic conditions of these waste collector children by focussing on such characteristics as their demographic profile, economic affiliation, and nature of the waste collection task. This empirical study may inform and illuminate the relevant policy makers and field activists in widening their understanding of the life and living of this vulnerable group.


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