Gender, migration and work in family farming. Labor and migration trajectories of Bolivian women horticulturists in the horticultural belt of Gran La Plata, 2018

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the link between gender, migration and work in family farming. We study the case of horticulture in Argentina, a labor niche historically segmented by nationality, currently dominated by Bolivian families of peasant origin who come to the country in search of better working conditions. This migratory process can be understood within the framework of social mobility process, in which transnational relations are also established, since societies of origin and destination keep related through networks established by migrants. In this context, we inquire about the place that women occupy in the migratory process and about their experiences as rural migrant workers. Understanding that patriarchal forms of domination are reproduced through common senses transmitted from generation to generation, we seek to understand how the roles assigned to (and played by) women in this sector of family farming are raised. A longitudinal perspective, through the analysis of trajectories, allows us to reconstruct the ways in which these roles are configured, reproduced and transformed over time. The main dimensions that emerge from the analysis of the labor and migration trajectories of Bolivian women who live and work in La Plata’s horticultural belt are: the forms of family organization of work in the Bolivian peasant economy; the factors that motivate and / or constrain women to start a migratory project; and its labor and territorial insertion itineraries in Argentina.