Work and Society (Trabajo y Sociedad)

Sociology of work, cultural studies and sociological/literary narratives

Work and Society (Trabajo y Sociedad) is a peer-reviewed social science journal. The journal was created in 1999 and it is published twice a year by the Department of Sociology at the National University of Santiago del Estero (UNSE), Argentina. It is thematically, theoretically, and methodological open, but it focuses mainly on the areas of sociology of work, cultural studies and the relationship between sociological and literary narratives. Its Editorial board is comprised of scholars from UNSE and CONICET, its Advisory board includes recognized national and international experts.

ABSTRACTS

Num. 12, vol. XI, Fall 2009

• Software factories in Spain: organisation and division of labour. A comparative view of fluid work in contemporary societies.
  JUAN JOSÉ CASTILLO
• Labor flexibilization and informal mechanisms of labour markets regulation. A study in the Argentinean film industry.
  MARÍA NOEL BULLONI YAQUINTA
• Union strategy and political action. The different experiences of two Argentine unions of the electrical sector
   M. ANA DROLAS
• New technologies in organizational management of telework
  PAULA LENGUITA
• Work and family: working children’s contribution to home social reproduction
  MARÍA EUGENIA RAUSKY
• Carting: ¿A work or rather a chance to earn some money?
  CORINA AIMETTA

• The political sociology of Émile Durkheim between 1892 and 1897: the State like appendix of the social morphology and the political action
  GRACIELA INDA
• Local goverments and development: a case study in Argentina
  MÓNICA PÁEZ

• Sociology and autobiography
  BERNARD LAHIRE

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Number 11, vol. X, Spring 2008

• Neoliberalism and union organizations resistance. Beliefs, Memory and tradition in the Congress of Argentine Workers.
  ENRIQUE ANDRIOTTI ROMANIN

• From the strike to the “pueblada”. Politic culture and fcollective action: The case of ATE in Neuquén
  FERNANDO AIZICZON

• To resist in the name of health.The experience of the “Cuerpo de Delegados” of Buenos Aires subway’s service

  CORA CECILIA ARIAS Y VICTORIA HAIDAR

• Global and local tendencies in the new models of production and labour organization.
  JULIANA FRASSA

• Recent transformations of work processes: from  automation to information technology revolution.

  PABLO MÍGUEZ

• Review the sex division of family’s work. Family’s models in the northeast argentine

  VANESA VÁZQUEZ LABA

• The hierarchial structuring of the fruit labor market: Chileans and "norteños" in the Alto Valle of Rio Negro
  VERONICA TRPIN

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Number 10, vol. IX, Fall, 2008

• Young telephone agents of call centers offshore in Buenos Aires
  ANDREA DEL BONO y MARÍA NOEL BULLONI 

• The trade union’s complex action plot: ATE and UPCN’s cases.
  NICOLÁS DIANA MENÉNDEZ

• Processes of flexibility and outsourcing. An empiric study in the refinery La Plata Repsol-YPF
  LETICIA MUÑIZ TERRA

• Recovery factories as expression of the acquired practice in the field of work.A case study in the Gran Buenos Aires
  VERÓNICA GARCÍA ALLEGRONE

• Convertibility plan and syndicalists during president Menem’s term
  HERNÁN FAIR

• Labor and relational trajectories of professionals of multinational companies in Cali, Colombia.
  JOHNNY OREJUELA, LINA ZURIANY y MARCELA MARIA COY

• A sociological inquiry upon the literary field.The rules of art by Pierre Bourdieu.
  ANA TERESA MARTINEZ

• The blank page block. Sociology as literary gender.
  CARLOS VIRGILIO ZURITA

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 Number 9, vol. IX, Winter, 2007

• The institutional process of the academic sociology in Argentina (1955-1966)
  Alberto Noé

• Roots of socio-economic thought. The labour division on Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim.
  Liliana Bergesio   

• To study outlier fields. An essay about the conditions for a profitably use of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of field.
  Ana Teresa Martínez 

• Interpretation of the discovery of “Chaco-santiageña” civilization by the Wagner Brothers: temporality in the theory and existence of the subjects (archeologists). 
  Beatriz Ocampo

• Education, School and Centenary.The case of Santiago del Estero.
  María Mercedes Tenti 

• Theoretical meditate around the study of the labor conflict. The processes of social construction of resistance.
  Juan Montes Cató 

• The exaltation of the worker's weakness as historical singularity of neoliberal capitalism. The case of chain Coto supermarkets. 
  Paula Abal Medina

• Crisis of the work and workers' management. Collective dynamics of management in recovered productive units in Argentina (1996-2006).
  María Mercedes Patrouilleau 

• A cycle of struggles stared in by the Sanitary Work Union of the Nation (Argentina, 1974–1984). 
  Ana  Nuñez      

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Number 8, vol. VIII, Fall, 2006

• Relations and specific practices of a group of cardboard pickers in Buenos Aires
  Débora Gorbán  

• Vitivinicola development in Mendoza, Argentine. Notes on its origin
  Patricia A. Collado  

• The active policies of use for the Latin American group in Spain
  Francisco Sacristán Romero   

• Local Development and Types of Productions: opportunities for the small productions
  Raúl Paz, et al.   

• Labour scene of Latin America in the frame of neoliberalism
  Irma Acosta Reveles  

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Number 7, vol. VII, junio septiembre, 2005

• Alberto Tasso  Argument and narration in the scientific report 

• María Luisa Graffigna   The labor trajectories and strategies of families in contexts of poverty in San Juan (Argentina).

• Areli Escobar S.  Configuration of subjectivity in employed and unemployed workers in Biobío, Chile

• Ramón Antonio Díaz   Microenterprises in the urban economy of Santiago del Estero

• Medina Sanson, L. et al.  Critical comments for the FAO’s land use planning model in the Mexican context

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Number 6, vol. VI, junio septiembre, 2003

• Loïc J.D. Wacquant  A sociological workshop in action: Actes of the Recherche in Social Sciences

• Augusto De Venanzi y Gisela Hobaica   Street Children. A theoretical model of social class.

• Celia Duek y Graciela Inda  The constitution process of the dominant class in Argentina

• Luis Alejandro Auat  Personalism or anarchy

• Alberto Tasso y Reinaldo Ledesma  La producción artesanal en Santiago del Estero

• Raúl Dargoltz  The forestry industry in Santiago del Estero

• Juan Domingo Montiel   Apuntes sobre empresas recuperadas por los trabajadores en la Argentina 

• José Aranda   The economical crisis in Santiago del Estero

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Number 5, vol. V, sept. 2002  Abstracts

• Marx’s Contributions to Rural Sociology and the Analysis of Agrarian Structures  Miguel Murmis

• The Process of Knowledge in the Theories of Marx, Durkheim and Weber:The Thesis of Radical Discontinuity  Celia Duek y Graciela Inda 

• The Formation of The Labor Market in Tucumán (1800-1870)   Daniel Campi

• Goat diary and the productive reconversion process in peasantry exploitations  Raúl Paz

• Argentina, economic laboratory  Ramón Frediani 

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Number 4, vol. IV, 2002  Abstracts

• In Memoriam Leopoldo Allub

• The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Caudillismo   Leopoldo Allub

• The Geography of Protest   Javier Auyero

• New Forms of Intermediation in a Traditional Agrarian Labor Market   Monica Bendini y Mónica Gallegos

• What Culture Does Development Require? A Need for Scientific and Technological Development in the Northwest?  Alberto Tasso y Luis Ponce

• University Professionals in the Labor Market  María Emilia Isorni

• Gender and Labor Relations in Santiago del Estero. Income strategies, labor identity and clientelism  Graciela Ruiz y Carlos Zurita

• The Case of Juan Jorba: An Experience of Rural Development? Mónica Gutvay 

• Agro-Industrial Modernization, Labor Demands and Precariousness. The Case of the Fruit-farmers in the Río Negro basin, Argentina  Pedro Tsakoumagkos  y Mónica Bendini  

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Number 3, vol. III, winter 1999  Abstracts

• The Course of the Labor Movement in Western Europe in the 20th Century: Accomplishments, Failures, and Transformations  Bruno Groppo.

• Labor Sociology Today: The Genealogy of a Paradigm  Juan José Castillo

• The Condition of Childhood in Argentina. Sanitary and socio-environmental indicators: progress during convertibilidad  Artemio López.

• Regional Labor Market Dynamics in a five year period. The Case of Gran Resistencia between 1994 and 1999  Silvia A. Robin y Carlos Crucella.  

• Beyond Unemployment Rates:Other Labor Problems in Santiago-La Banda in the Nineties. Changes and distributive features in two forms of sub utilization   Ramón Antonio Díaz

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  Number 2, II  Abstracts 

• The Emergence of New Productive Models. Light Production and Intensified Labor in Spain  Juan José Castillo

• Occupant Peasants: Integration, Exclusion and Vulnerability of in Argentina. Case study in the framework of Globalization  Raúl Paz    

• Basic Principles in the Administration of Social Policies in Argentina   Ramón Frediani. 

• The Vulnerable: Labor and Life Conditions   María Rosa Gómez, María E. Isorni y Graciela Saber  

• Hybrid, Belonging and Locality in the Construction of a National Cuisine   Eduardo P. Archetti  

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Number 1, vol. I  Abstracts

• Labor Market Professions and Occupations in Santiago del Estero, Argentina, 
  during 1869-1914   Alberto Tasso

• What is left of the "Labor Movement"? Manners of Reclaiming Labor in the New Argentine Democracy   Marina Farinetti

• Poverty and Indigence in Argentina. Documentation according to the World Bank, with data about provinces, regions and the whole country   Artemio López

• Small Scale Agrarian Production in Argentina: Active Policies for Sustainable Development   Rubén de Dios

• Stratification and Labor: Images and Magnitudes in Santiago del Estero   Carlos Zurita

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Young telephone agents of call centers offshore in Buenos Aires

 Andrea del Bono y María Noel Bulloni

 The article explores on some subjects of a research on the labor experiences shared by two groups of young telephone agents who offer telephone attention services from platforms of call centers offshore located in Buenos Aires (Argentina) to Spanish and North American clients. With the intention to catch the heterogeneity which characterized these workers experiences, the study on purpose questions the different logic of actions that contribute to their conformation, trying to explain the relationship between these logics of actions and the individual and collective behavior of the workers in relation to their work. 
Firstly, the article states that the change of status that starting to work in a call center represents is deeply tied to the diverse labor trajectories of the telephone agents, with their professional perspective and their social and cultural capital. Although the experiences of the telephone agents are heterogeneous they are threaded by variables of little recognition and low identification to their work.  This situation weakens the construction of solidarity and collective strategies of action and, at the same time, it encourages the telephone agents to identify themselves with other scopes of life, distant to their work, which allow them to sustain a more positive image of themselves. Nevertheless, the paper arguments that this kind of job has an unquestionably important place in the life of this young people. This importance is related to the hiring terms that the call center provides: a law binding permanent contract, which allows them to develop other personal projects. The article also examines the instrumental rationality that prevails in the form in which young people are related to their work, even though when they keep relating their wok to their freedom and the perspectives of the different aspects of their private life. In brief, the results exposed in the article reflect a kaleidoscopic and quite heterogeneous image of the labor experiences of the call centers workers, which argues and makes complex the most spread characterizations.

The trade union’s complex action plot: ATE and UPCN’s cases.

Nicolás Diana Menéndez

This paper proposes a comparative analysis of the internal dynamics that constitutes trade union’s action in the two national organizations from public sector workers: ATE and UPCN. The principal axes we want to discuss are, in the first place, the horizontal and vertical relationships established in each trade union. Secondly, the different kind of bounds generated between each organization and its militants. In addition, in the third place, we will approach the struggle strategies, to observe finally the way in which the dynamics of their own action and the dispute between trade unions interact and are superposed. 
We use a qualitative methodological approach, making in depth interviews to leaders and union delegates, as well as to workers and public administrators.

Processes of flexibility and outsourcing. An empiric study in the refinery La Plata Repsol-YPF

 Leticia Muñiz Terra

This article attempts to offer some elements to understand the processes of flexibility and outsourcing developed in our country. In this way, the principal questions that guide the research are: Which are the particularities of the flexibility process implemented in Argentina together with the new model of accumulation in the 90s?, What characteristics acquired the processes of outsourcing of the big national public companies that were privatized?, and Which were the consequences for their workers?
To answer to these questions we developed an empiric study in the refinery La Plata from the ex-public petroleum company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales. The principal objective is to study the policy of outsourcing developed in the company after their privatization and the consequences that this strategy had along the years on the small enterprises conformed by its workers.

Recovery factories as expression of the acquired practice in the field of work.

A case study in the Gran Buenos Aires

Verónica García Allegrone

Part of the surveys of recovery of factories had interpreted this process as modalities of new responses of the unemployed workers front the unemployment, as a result of the “crisis” that had place in Argentina in the last years. Several surveys had registered the radical and rupture shape that this process had taken, and consider them an alternative to the capitalism, an alternative at the unemployment. If well understand the significance of the structural transformations in the analysis, we consider important to complete this surveys broaching the mode that operate life’s experiences that the workers acquiring on the work field, in the practices and social representations that evolve with the recovery.

In 2003 we started to fallow the experiences of the workers in an autopart factory in Gran Buenos Aires that was recovery in 2002. We based our research in a case study.  In the first part of the article, we present the construction of the claim for work and the arguments that the workers have been made about the factory crisis. We wonder how they arrive to appreciate the claim as “rightful”. In the second part we reflect about workers life experiences, that they used as tools to recovery the factory. 

Convertibility plan and syndicalists during president Menem’s term

 Hernán Fair

 A drastic process of state reform and economic changes that dramatically modified economic and social countries’ structure took place between 1989 and 1999 during president Menem’s term. These basic amendments obeyed neoliberal ideology and were opposite to economic policies always held by peronism. In spite of that, argentinian president would gain and keep for a long time the support of a great and heterogeneous social coalition that includes businessmen, popular representatives and syndicalists. In fact, huge economic change did not find a consistent and unified oposition within these groups. How this support can be explained? Has the Convertibility plan any influence over that attitude? Focusing on term 1991-1995, this article tries to investigate the relationship between the Convertibility plan and his “selective incentives” on the social legitimacy gained by menemism.

Labor and relational trajectories of professionals of multinational companies
in Cali, Colombia.

Johnny Javier  Orejuela

It is known that, the labor flexibility affects negatively, fundamentally to the less qualified populations, the young workers but or but the old ones and with less networks of sociability; what is interesting at the moment is that these processes of precariousness of the work begin to also affect of different way and in less proportion, but perhaps single so far, to the professional groups. By the previous thing, the objective of this investigation was to characterize the labor and relational trajectories of EMN professionals. The present study of case, I constitute myself with 11 interviews in depth to professionals of the multinational sector. The findings allow to understand the existing relation between the labor and relational trajectory, its mutual affectations and their importance to understand present the dynamic ones of the labor market.

A sociological inquiry upon the literary field.
The rules of art by Pierre Bourdieu.

Ana Teresa Martínez

In this paper, we dwell upon Pierre Bourdieu’s contribution on sociology of literature. We develop the main literary field notion features, exploring the ideas of relative autonomy, nomos and illusio. We also remember several sides about the concept of field elaboration process, as Pierre Bourdieu thought it. Finally, we examine the epistemological questions he tries to resolve as a social topology or analysis situs.

Key words.

Literary field/Pierre Bourdieu/nomos/illusio/social topology

The blank page block. Sociology as literary gender.

Carlos Virgilio Zurita

A sociologist`s work becomes apparent, and takes form, through writing. This is something that everybody in the academic world knows and suffers. In order to demonstrate that one exists, you must write. Students, both under-and postgraduate, must give evidence of their institutional, and even personal, life and activity, in the form of papers, articles, theses, and  even books.

These notes explore the frontiers and terrain where sociology and literature meet in the realm of practices. They critically examine the supposed reasons why the problems of writing rarely figures in social science curricula in Argentina (or even Latin America as a whole), and go on to highlight some of the potentially negative implications this situation has academics` professional and personal development.

The institutional process of the academic sociology in Argentina (1955-1966)

  Alberto Noé  

In this article the historical and social conditions of creation and development of academic sociology are analyzed in the University of Buenos Aires, in the period 1955-1966. The founders actors is also characterized: institutional actors, socio-political actors and individual actors, especially through Gino Germani's intellectual and academic trajectory, and the internal and external conflicts until the crisis of 1966, taken place by the coup by the general Juan Carlos Onganía.

   
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Roots of socio-economic thought. The labour division 
on Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim.

Liliana Bergesio

In these days, revisiting the called “classic” authors’ work becomes relevant because the central topics focused by these masters models´ pioneers have been reframed and inform the current debates. When this kind of themes appear, we meet again the theoretical questions faced by these authors and the knowledge about their concepts increases our own understanding about contemporary questions. 

This article draws on Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim´s ideas about labour division to reconsider this basic issue in human sociability. As this kind of analysis has not been a frequent topic in Social Sciences, I invite the reader to a debate in order to highlight its potential.

Key words: labour division – Adam Smith – Karl Marx – Émile Durkheim

   
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  To study outlier fields. 
An essay about the conditions for a profitably use of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of field.

Ana Teresa Martínez

In this work we develop our theoretical and epistemological grounds to read and make use of the Pierre Bourdieu’s theory. Then, we review the difficulties exposed by several Argentineans authors to use his concept of field to study the local intellectual world. We propose them an exercise where we use this theory to study a outlier field: a cultural association in Santiago del Estero 1920-30. We pay attention specially on weakness and dependent conditions of this social space.

Key words: intellectual field, Bourdieu, Santiago del Estero  

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Interpretation of the discovery of “Chaco-santiageña” civilization by the Wagner Brothers: 
temporality in the theory and existence of the subjects (archeologists).

Beatriz Ocampo

This work interprets the archeological discovery of the “Chaco-santiagueña” civilization by the Wagner Brothers, in the province of Santiago del Estero, at  the beginning of the XX th. century from the theoretical perspectives and from the own history of the authors.

Travellers, naturalists, explorers, botanists, archeologists, Emile and Duncan Wagner belonged to the French aristocracy; they developed an intense scientific life, as well in Argentine as in Europe, particularly in France.

The “diffusionist”” theory served these authors as an interpretation framework of the temporality of the “Chaco-santiagueña” civilization. According to the latter and to the analysis of the symbolical representations printed on pottery objects and by means of the use of the comparative method, they affirmed the paralelism between Trya and Hissarlic. From this interpretation the “Chaco-santiagueña” civilization emerges from a Great Basic, Universal and Timeless Civilization.

My interest lies in incorporating this discussion about the theorical interpretation of the Wagner Brthers to the use they realize themselves to speak about themselves as subjects, living in a world far from their native country, France, and from its culture.

Key Words: “Chaco-santiagueña” Civilization, Diffussionism, Universal, Basic and Timeless

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Education, School and Centenary.The case of Santiago del Estero.

María Mercedes Tenti

The centenary anniversary of May Revolution’s, turned into an opportunity to 'construct" a collective memory, that would contribute the consolidation of the national development model back then. However in every local territory, beyond the national strategy, each province celebrations had particularities, according its own characteristics, leading characters and regional cultural guidelines.

Beside those local particularities, in every case, the school played a preponderant role as a legitimization strategy. The purpose of this research paper, just a brief part of the PHD thesis, is to investigate Santiago del Estero´s own characteristics (including its Capital and other cities) during the centenary anniversary, analyzing school role in different scenarios.  

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Theoretical meditate around the study of the labor conflict. 
The processes of social construction of resistance.

Juan Montes Cató

In the last years it seemed that the labor conflict has restored the place that historically it had within the analyses on the work relations. Some advances in the study of the variation of the confliction testify this phenomenon. Nevertheless, still the investigations are little that approach the dynamics of the labor conflict in the spaces and concrete places of work. This second field supposes to solve a series of problems: what dimensions can be distinguished at the time of studying the actions of workers , it reaches with characterizing the moment of expression opened of the action to give account of the phenomenon, what paper plays the symbolic dimension in the fights between the capital and work? Starting of these questions, the article crosses the main traditions and proposes tracks for an analysis of the labor conflict like social configuration submissive processes of daily construction

Key words: labor conflict, resistance, relations of the work, theory  

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The exaltation of the worker's weakness as historical singularity of neoliberal capitalism. 
The case of chain Coto supermarkets

Paula Abal Medina

In this article the notion of power dispositive is applied to the study of relations between capital and work in the Coto supermarket company. Two central points are presented: firstly a multiplicity of power practices that are part of the different elements of the company dispositive are described and analysed. Secondly the question of the subjectivation of the capital and of the general and singular main line, that defines the studied relations. 

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 Crisis of the work and workers' management. Collective dynamics of management 
in recovered productive units in Argentina (1996-2006)

María Mercedes Patrouilleau

This paper sets out to analyze the collective dinamicas of management in productive units that have been taken by their workers in last decade in Argentina. The metodological boarding identifies three cases of recovered companies by a qualitative aproch, using semi-structured interviews and observations in spaces of factory and administration. The work tries to identificate logics and the underlying difficulties to these collective managements and his relations with structural conditions (resources of inversin and technologist), collective organization and subjective conditions.

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A cycle of struggles stared in by the Sanitary Work Union of the Nation 
(Argentina, 1974 – 198 4)

Ana Nuñez

This article rescues and describes a cycle of struggles stared in by the Sanitary Work Union of the Nation (Argentina, September 1974 - August 1984), that has been an unobservable for the dominant bibliography. The conceptual conflict periods, its unfolding and resolution by the water and plumbing service municipalization in an intermediate city (process that has also been avoided by literature, in front of the different forms from privatization), allows to enter itself in the genesis of a political institution.

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  Relations and specific practices of a group of cardboard pickers in Buenos Aires

Débora Gorbán 

In the last years Argentina has experienced the growth in the number of people who live of informal recollection of waste. Known as cirujas first and cardboard pickers (cartoneros) later, the peculiarity of this activity resides in their conditions of visibility and exhibition that characterised the work space in which it is developed. In this sense, we consider not only the street as a place where this labour activity is carried out, but also other spaces in which this labour practice is developed. In this paper we analyse the relations and specific practices of a group of cardboard pickers that arrive every day from their districts in Buenos Aires province, to Capital Federal, where they make the recollection.  Our objective is to identify the of significant social spaces constructed by them, taking into consideration their labour activity. To begin with this analysis we considered space in its “material” connotation, focusing in the spaces that emerged as central in our investigation. In this work we understand social space as a set of meaning and communication relations, that is way we studied the configurations that this relations take in each empirical space; the relations and practices that take place in them and how these ones could converged into specific social spaces. We follow a qualitative methodological perspective, using as research tools in depth and structured interviews with cardboard pickers of Jose Leon Suárez, and participant observation in its neighbourhoods.

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   Vitivinicola development in Mendoza, Argentine. Notes on its origin

Patricia A. Collado

The present study approaches the origins of Mendoza’s economic development, by means of Schumpeter’s theory about the dynamical behavior of elites, according to Hugo Nochteff’s interpretation (for Argentina and Latin America).

In this respect, we characterize the particular way in which Mendoza’s local bourgeoisie  leads a process of adoption of policies tending to establish an agroindustrial model, seeking for the innovative parameters that, from our point of view, contribute to understand this regional development as expressly induced by the economic and political elite. We trace the principal policies that cooperated with this regional development, because they were orientated to improve access and availability to land, credit and investments in the sector, and also infrastructure, incorporation of labor force and the development of science and technology, all in order to serve of the new model.

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 The active policies of use for the Latin American group in Spain

Francisco Sacristán Romero

The active policies of use for the Latin American group try to contribute to the increase of the incorporation possibilities and labor maintenance of these workers so related to the Spanish culture, combining, at the same time, flexibility and security in the use.  In addition, in macroeconomic terms, the selective performance on the supply and the demand, with measures such as the promotion of the deprived initiative, the aid to mobility to sectors with sufficient demand or the direct creation of use, allow to reduce to the imbalances or misalignments in the work market.

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Local Development and Types of Productions: opportunities for the small productions

Raúl Paz, Ramiro Rodríguez y Viviana González

Considering that the local rural development can has a productive activity as base of its maintenance, it’s strange not to ask about which are the intrinsic characteristics that those types of productions should have for contribute to local development. This aspect acquires major relevance for its analysis specially when It’s found associated to rural poverty as much as small peasant production. In this context, results useful to reveal the inforce cultural contents in everyday productive life; in one way or another, in their significative construction, are engaged, an important part of the local producers. The central argument that will be present through all this article is the existence of invisible components in the everyday working of the types of productions, carried out by the small producer, that have influence in a silent way on the possibility of success – or failure- of a local development project. The analysis will take place in the Rio Dulce irrigation area of Santiago del Estero province – Argentina. In this region, in 1987, a Non-Governmental Organization began a Development of Small Goatish Producers project and it’s until today the place where a group of initiatives from different organizations and institutions are still adding.
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Labour scene of Latin America in the frame of neoliberalism

Irma Acosta Reveles

In this article I have wanted to delineate the central trends from labour scene of Latin America in the frame of neoliberalism, as well as the domineering perceptions concerning these processes. I have centered in the aspects of major meaning for wage-labor in their insertion to the economic cycle from the sale of the labourforce. The aim is to show that the different dimensions that include the relations between capital and work they have been change thoroughly, and not  also in a level of  the labour market; nevertheless that is this one the space that has deserved main attention of analysts and politicians. The proposition is that the origin of changes that they have been express in circulation sphere it will be find in adjustment substantive from mechanism extraction of the surplus value (inside productive process), and the results is the reformulation of traditional standards from the distribution of social wealth between the productive factors.  

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Argument and narration in the scientific report

Alberto Tasso
Doctor UBA, área Historia. Investigador del CONICET.
Profesor de la Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero.
 tasso@arnet.com.ar

Is there truly a frontier among the text 'scientific' and the one that doesn't seek to be it? The article tries to shorten the imaginary breach among the scientific prose to the literary one. Beyond their specific differences, it shows their common areas, not only given by the demand of composition of a text, but in the argumentational search and until in the moment to begin to write. 

Through authors of methodology manuals, and of the dispersed one mandatory enunciated by different writers, some of the significant moments are identified in the task of the report of an investigation. After analyzing some cases of narrative in the social sciences, some cooperation forms and mutual use are pointed out among those who practice the writing. 

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Microenterprises in the urban economy of Santiago del Estero

Ramón Antonio Díaz
Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero, Argentina
rad@unse.edu.ar

In this paper, the contribution of  microenterprises to the urban economy of Santiago del Estero, is analyzed under a comparative and descriptive point of view.

In the beginning, on the basis of Censo Nacional Económico 1994 data, the position of this segment of entrerprises is compared with other provinces of NOA region, and with the national average, taking into account variables as employment, income and wages. In addition, the concept of productivity is also considered.

The study is extended along the decade with EPH data, in order to meassure the effects of 1994-95 crisis and subsequent growing cycle in  urban economy, on microentreprises performance in terms of salaries evolution and dynamic of  employment.

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Critical comments for the FAO’s land use planning model in the Mexican context

Medina Sanson, L., Anaya Garduño, M., 
Ortiz Solorio C., Volke Haller, V. y Pérez Farrera, M.
Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas, IRENAT, México
medina@colpos.mx,anayam@colpos.mx

The land use planning is a model postulated by the FAO, focused to the development of the rural population and to guarantee the long term availability of natural resources. Nevertheless, many land use planning methods have been ineffective because they do not consider the objectives of the users nor those of the governments. In Mexico, the index of population growth and environmental deterioration makes indispensable to develop procedures for land use planning that agreed with the specific limitations, potentials and resources. In this sense, it is important to review the reach of FAO’s  planning model, in order to glimpse favorable strategies and actions in agreed with the social and academic Mexican reality . Considering these issues, it was critically revised the FAO’s model and it was recognized as critical to equilibrate: objectives and perspective of communities, governments and of the technicians; necessities of research, human resources and available materials; attention to biological necessities and cultural necessities; production of goods and protection of resources. 

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Areas of frontiers Chaco-Salteña

Fernando Ariel Bonfanti
 Alejandra Torre Geraldi.
Facultad de Humanidades
Universidad Nacional del Nordeste, Argentina
fernandobonfanti@yahoo.com.ar

The present investigation work has as objective to identify the problems that contain the frontier spaces, specifically in the frontier Chaco-salteña, with the purpose of knowing its cultural and socio-economic characteristics. 

We begin considering that a distinctive feature of the areas of frontiers is to imagine them as complex spaces where interact constantly towns with marked cultural, economic and social differences that transfer him own activities. 

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The labor trajectories and strategies of families in contexts of poverty 
in the Great San Juan (Argentina) through a study of cases

María Luisa Graffigna
CONICET-Universidad Nacional de San Juan (IISE-FacSo)
mllg@arnet.com.ar

The structural transformations that took place in the last decades marked notably the trajectories of numerous families. In particular the changes in the labor market –more flexibility, more precariousness, unemployment- make that the access to protected and relatively steady employments –a characteristic feature of the Welfare State- is a goal difficult to reach. The situation is still more difficult for the families in positions of economic and social fragility, whose members in general possess scarce qualification and habitually they operate in the informal labor market.

In this frame, the present article seeks to characterize the labor trajectories and strategies of families in contexts of poverty in the Great San Juan through a study of cases.

The study was developed by means of a qualitative strategy in a context of discovery that allows to give account of the perspective of the actor. The cases belong to homes of the Great San Juan whose election was guided for the search of diversity in labor category, gender, age; and with the criterion that they in any moment of their labor trajectory present situations of fragility or vulnerability to the poverty.

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Configuration of subjectivity in employed and unemployed workers in Biobío, Chile

Areli Escobar S.
Universidad de Concepción, Chile
hualpenterra@hotmail.com

The transformations in the organization of work in contemporany capitalism have also provoked changes in the configuration of the subjectivity of the employed and unemployed workers in the services sector in the Biobío region in Chile. The co-opted involvement in the organization, the postfordist estrangement, usurpation of creative and imaginative abilities, the imposition of a social imaginary of work, and the individualization processes are some examples that highlight the metamorphoses of subjectivity in the current world of work.

Key words: work, unemployment, subjectivity, social imaginary, identity.

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A sociological workshop in action: Actes of the Recherche in Social Sciences

Loïc J.D. Wacquant
University of California, Berkeley-El College de France
Traducción: Javier Auyero
Sociology Department at Stony Brook, SUNY
javier.auyero@stonybrook.edu

In the article is examined the significance of Actes of the Recherche  in Social Sciences (ARSS), one of the publications of more important social sciences of the world and that it was founded more than thirty years ago by Pierre Bourdieu. The purpose of ARSS was to promote the internationalization of the social studies in France, overcoming national divisions. Although it was assumed like a review that privileged the scientific thing above the intellectual thing, their pages have been open to the conceptual and methodological innovation. 

The existence of four main thematic nuclei is pointed out in the review: i) the economy of the cultural goods, ii) the social classification and the production of collective social, iii) the dominance strategies, distinction, and reproduction, and iv) the study of practical, powers, and intellectual predicaments.  

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The constitution process of the dominant class in Argentina

Celia Duek y Graciela Inda
(UNCuyo- CONICET)
kikaremba@hotmail.com

With the aim of explaining in their more intimate determinations the conformation and consolidation of an alliance of dominant class in the Argentina, we propose and develop the following thesis. It’ the combination of the concentration processes of the property of the prolific lands, of configuration in a mode of accumulation centered in the agrarian rent and in scripted in the modality of expansion of the capitalist world relationships that takes place at the ends of the XIX Century and consolidation of the National State and in their intervention techniques, the one that is in the base of the emergency and statement of a block in the power in whose nucleus the bourgeoisie landowner has an hegemonic position.  

The elucidation of the State’s role in the process of unstable merger of a dominant class marked by internal contradictions is, we believe, an interesting contribution to the social sciences field, considering the predominance of the interpretations that put emphasis exclusively in the economic relationships. In the same line, it is necessary to add up, we take the hegemony of the bourgeoisie landowner like a phenomenon that not only finds their grounds in the economic dynamic but also in the political relationships.

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Street Children. A theoretical model of social class.

Aungusto De Venanzi
University of Maryland-College Park
augdeven@telcel.net.ve

Gisela Hobaica
Escuela de Sociología
Universidad Central de Venezuela

Two approaches have predominated in the study of street children. The first, concerns the reasons that drive children to the streets and the conditions in which they endure their existence, with particular reference to the strategies they use to guarantee survival. Observation and ethnographic methods are typically used in this form of research. The second, is focused on the policy designs put forward by different types of public and private organizations to care for street children and the evaluation of these policies. The methodologies used are various types of impact assessment. In this article we look at street children from a theoretical model of social class according to three dimensions of the children’s way of life: a. Their position in the division of labor; b. the cultural context in which they develop and their processes of identity construction and c. their social action strategies. We argue that this approach gives a more comprehensive view of street life experience and emphasizes the role of children as social agents actively engaged in the construction and exploitation of social capital.  

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Personalism or anarchy

Alejandro Auat

Departamento de Filosofía
Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero, Argentina
aauat@uolsinectis.como.ar

One of the most acute observers of Santiago del Estero’s reality, Bernardo Canal Feijóo, has guessed a tragical destiny for our political life when, in 1932, placed in this terms –“fulanismo” (personalism) or anarchy- the understanding key for ‘santiagueña’ civil soul. We don’t believe it is a tragedy but a drama: there are limit situations but going out too, there is liberty and novelty in history. Liberty acts always within a possibilities framework, drawn by past actions and options. Many times, what really matter is not the option but to make the conditions for an option. The point is not to change “fulanos” (Mr. so-and-so) but to bring them a possibilities framework to modify their functions. Today’s challenge in Santiago del Estero is to modify the political logic.

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The economical crisis in Santiago del Estero

José Aranda

Editor de Economía de El Liberal
jaranda@elliberal.com.ar

The economical crisis, which hit Argentina during 2002, had strong effects in the economical activity and the employment of Santiago del Estero. The population of the two principal urban cores of the province, Santiago (the capital) and La Banda, is around 338.761 people. In May of 2002, the oficial statistics said that 203.934 people were living under the poverty line.

  Perceptually, this number shows that a 60,2% of the population had not enough money to support their family spents like clothes, public services, transportation, etc. Between these people, there were 94.176 people who had not enough incomes to support the basic basket of food and not enough money to pay their basic needings, too.

  In October of 2002, another official statistic, showed that more people were pushed under the poverty line. In that month in Santiago/La Banda the poor people were 205.800 persons, 66% of the total population of this two cores. And the indigents were more too. In this situation were 102.900 people, 31,7% of the total population. This numbers show that in 5 month of 2002, a total of 10.590 people lost a social position and became a poor or -in the worst case- an indigent person.  

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The forestry industry of the province Santiago del Estero- Argentina.

The exploitation of quebracho colorado in Argentine and Latin American.

         Raul Dargoltz

Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero, CONICET

The Forestry Industry constituted the principal economic activity of the Province from the end of the nineteenth century until well into the twentieth century. The exploitation and extraction of wood was the means of the integration of Santiago del Estero in the expansive cycle of agro- exportation, but with very limited multiplying effects in the interior of the economy and the Provincial Society.

The effects of the exploitation for the development of the Province at the social and economic level, for the most part negative, are generally known, as also the totally unbalancing impact on the ecosystem of the Province.

At the beginning of the century, Santiago del Estero had an extension of 143,484 square km, according to data provided by the Office of Geodesia y Tierras, and about 70%, that is nearly a million hectares, was forested. At present, it is calculated, as no official inventory of forests exists, there that is less than 700,000 hectares.

According to the figures provided by the Provincial Direction of Forests of the year 1947, more than 170,000,000 tons of wood had left the forests of Santiago, corresponding to a very substantial monetary equivalent.

Some years before, in the middle of the 1940s, two tannin factories were established in the Province, one El Bravo which later became Weisburd, Department of Mario Moreno, and the other in Monte Quemado (Copo), pertaining to the Compañia Tannina  (COTAN); the stable towns which later grew up around these factories were graced with brick-built houses, electric light and running water.  These factories, built up under the direction of Israel Weisburd, Noguerol and Sanchez, foreign immigrants become businessmen, were obliged to submit to the rules of a monopolist market dictated by the powerful multinational firm La Forestal del Chaco which controlled the buying and selling of tannin for around a century. From 1960, when the Quebracho forests of the Chaco Argentine and Paraguayan region were totally devastated, La Forestal abandoned all its factories and their installations to continue with the exploitation of Mimosa in its African colonies.

As a consequence of this action, Weisburd and the COTAN of Monte Quemado, were unable to place their excellent tannin products and were obliged to close the factories. 

It is from the second half of the 1950s after the passing of the national law 13,273 of 1948, which the Province adopted, that there arose a series of educative, technical and regulatory organizations. Among these we can mention the Forestry Engineering Faculty, the Forestry Industrialization Institute, and the Forestry Districts, afterwards converted into Forestry Cooperatives, which tended to rationalize of the exploitation of the natural recourses and the social promotion of the minor actors of the system.

It is from the time of the dates mentioned above that, in some important regions of the Province, the misnamed “forestry industry” began to cede space to non-traditional products (parquets, doors, windows, beams etc.). This happened with the formation of Forestry Districts, today converted into Forestry Cooperatives and some private enterprises. During the period 1979 to 1981, these Forestry Districts succeeded in producing 120,000 tons of wood, a significant figure, which converted them into industrial firms.  More than 500 families earned their living from them, supported by the Provincial Government of General Cesar F.Ochoa during the military dictatorship,  begun in the year 1976, which permitted the provision of carpentry  by direct selection without public  bidding, in  the construction of economic housing by the Provincial Institute for Housing and Town Development.

This help of the military government which contrasted with the attitude of the democratic governments which succeeded it, was implemented through credits of privileged promotion, subsidies and the back up of the Province, which allowed the Forestry District to acquire modern machinery which is in existence to the present time. 

These new organisms produced a great transformation in the “forestry industry”, changing its methods, which had been destructive of the forests, to a process of industrialization on site of the recourses of the forest, a reforestation plan and the conservation of the natural recourses.

The old, almost feudal, relationship of forestry workers was abandoned, axe- men and the old axe- man pariah were converted into industrial workers earning salaries with decent dwellings social security, education, established townships etc. There was a veritable planning of industrial advantage of the forestry and the human recourses in the Province, and these facts, even though of relatively short duration, left a notable mark in their zones of influence.

The period in which we centre our investigation has not been sufficiently investigated, and it is necessary to analyze and interpret it for the great historical importance, which it had on the economic and social development of the Province. And above all, for the possibility to change the historic destiny imposed from the outside which converted Santiago del Estero into a great sawmill, producer of sleepers of Quebracho Colorado for the English and French railway tracks and the fuel to feed the locomotives and also the provision of the posts for the great farms of the humid Pampa.

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Marx’s Contributions to Rural Sociology and the Analysis of Agrarian Structures

Miguel Murmis
Universidad de General Sarmiento
murmis@mail.retina.ar

Among the founders of sociology, Marx is the one who paid closest attention to the analysis of rural processes and their relationship with the rest of the society. He provided a systematic approach, both in his analysis of agrarian structures and in his understanding of their relationship with the rest of society. I believe that in the sociological bibliography it is not possible to find a more complete analysis of agrarian issues.

 To build a systematic theory, to think it as a theory of a moment in the historical process, to situate this moment in history in its whole, including within it the future and the steps to take in the present to get closer to a more desirable future, to use theory to define social agents and see them in action in concrete situations, to do all this taking advantage of the existing knowledge and fighting with it, with what is offered by the emerging economics, by history, biology, rural sciences, classical literature, philosophy: All this was part of Marx’s everyday work and is present in the books in which he focuses on rural processes, their structure, history, their place in society.

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The Process of Knowledge in the Theories of Marx, Durkheim and Weber:
The Thesis of Radical Discontinuity

Celia Duek y Graciela Inda

Conicet-Universidad Nacional de Cuyo

kikaremba@hotmail.com
gracielainda@hotmail.com

At a time when "postmodernism” has made eclecticism and theoretical poverty popular, this article aims to revalue the sociological theories that because of their scientific aim and rigor are considered classics. We will do this through a critical reading of the theoretical discourse by Durkheim, Marx and Weber as understood more by their intimate problems than by their word.

We go back to the classics because they are the theoretical thinkers who laid the fundamental stones that marked a great part of the later studies in the social sciences. As argued by Portantiero, after classical sociology little theoretical progress has been made.

To begin, we recognize that there are irreconcilable differences between Durkheim, Marx and Weber’s writings. Secondly, we suggest the need to specificity each of their discourses in relation to their forms of causality and their systems of verification: What is the relationship between object of analysis and empirical reality? What is the method or direction towards knowledge? How causality is analyzed to explain social issues?

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The Formation of The Labor Market in Tucumán (1800-1870)

Daniel Campi
Conicet-Universidad Nacional de Tucumán
dcampi@herrera.unt.edu.ar

The most obvious deficiency in studies on laborers and labor markets during the 19^th century in Tucumán lies in three issues that are among the most important pending questions in the regional historiography: a) the origin (occupational and geographical) of the workers hired in ingenios and sugar cane plantations in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s; b) the role played by small agricultural and cattle estates in the process; c) the influence upon these processes of cultural dimensions (representations and behavior; adaptations and resistance). These notes aim at proving a preliminary analysis of these questions, and reflecting on these pending questions, rather than offering answers.

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Goat diary and the productive reconversion process in peasantry exploitations

Raúl Paz
Conicet-Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero
pazraul@unse.edu.ar

The thesis supporting the idea that capitalist intrusion in the rural environment causes the disappearance of rural areas does not always apply to Latin American countries in spite of a visible modernization and an increasing globalization process in agriculture. In contrasting rural situation with the various theoretical frames, mainly on the peasantry transformation prognosis, it is fair to point out the lack of a single line that may model a new agro structure, particularly in a historical time of confrontation among social sectors with strong adjustment and transition processes. This work aims at researching in a rural area, with dominant peasantry exploitation, in the province of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, the presence of productive reconversion processes and phenomena. A deep research into the social transformation processes in peasantry exploitation demands the identification, according to the typologies, of the various production systems and the estimation of their possible trajectories along time.

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Argentina, economic laboratory

Ramón Frediani 
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba-
Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo 
rfrediani@cordoba.com.ar

 All the extreme economic pathologies of the economic vademecum are often present in Argentina, a country that has demonstrated to posses little economic culture. Being the heaven of recurrent economic alchemy and eccentric economic plans, and where finance ministers yield easily to pressures from all types of lobbies with demands that are incompatible, the Argentine economy could be defined as the paradigm of the bizarre economy, because as a society it insists in betting on the magical, the supernatural, that which is different, in a terrain of human activity where no magic is possible.

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The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Caudillismo  

 
 Leopoldo Allub
Conicet

 A cultural constant in different places of Latin America is the incompatibility between  patterns of domination and forms of competition and pluralism that result effective in acquiring and exercising power. The phenomenon describes the "catholic ethic" and portrays a type of personality and political behavior that the author labels "spirit of caudillismo".

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The Geography of Protest 

Javier Auyero

Departament of Sociology

State University of New York at Stony Brook

Stony Brook, NY 11794-4356

Auyero@aol.com

With regions caught up in an economic crisis, the generalized corruption of the provincial governments, and the recurrent attempts by national governments to impose a “structural adjustment” in the provinces, new forms of popular belligerence are becoming generalized and quite frequent, turning the interior of the country into what Miller and Martin (1998) describe as a landscape of collective violent protest, or what Tilly (2000) recently called “transgressive contention.” The recurrent use of blockades in streets, routes and bridges, the attack on public buildings and residences of state officials and local politicians, the use of public squares as camping grounds in sign of protest indicate we must pay attention to the spatial dimensions --structured and structuring—of the protest, that is, to the convergent y divergent ways in which popular belligerence take place in geography and also create geography. The Argentine interior offers a wide range of empirical data for a comparative study of processes and mechanisms at the center of “spatial revolts.”

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New Forms of Intermediation in a Traditional Agrarian Labor Market

 Mónica Bendini and Norma Gallegos    
Grupo de Estudios Sociales Agrarios (GESA). Facultad de Derecho 
y Ciencias Sociales. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Argentina
rtbendin@uncoma.edu.ar

 In a traditional agrarian labor market, where global companies function, we analyze changes in contractual connections. We focus on social networks and recruitment systems that regulate rural labor in historical areas and in new expansion zones of a productive chain. We also analyze recent forms of “tercerización” of agrarian labor supply, in a framework of redefined protective labor laws.

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What Culture Does Development Require? A Need for Scientific and Technological Development in the Northwest?

Alberto Tasso and Luis Ponce

CONICET, UNSE tasso@arnet.com.ar

UNSE ponceluis@yahoo.com

 We want to reflect on the idea of “cultural development,” that is, the cultural characteristics required for the development of our country and specifically, our region. It could be argued that this is a recurring issue –though not in the terms we have just addressed– but perhaps not debated enough and about which we have not seen many recent contributions.

Our main thesis is that, during periods of rapid transformation, societies go through changes in the modes of doing and living that inevitably impact on that more stable frame of regulation we call culture, and that those changes are not only spontaneous but can also be produced by society through diverse means.

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 University Professionals in the Labor Market

María Emilia Isorni
UNSE, marili@unse.edu.ar

 
This article acknowledges issues concerning the relationship between higher education and employment in a moment of renewed interests towards education; asked to participate with a crucial role in increasing potential access to jobs in the labor market.  

 The theoretical assumption is that the relationship between education-employment cannot be isolated from ways of life and particular productions of social structure. From such a notion, there is an attempt to answer this and other arguments, taking into consideration contextual connections that impact educational policies as changes produced in the labor market in the last decade. So as to understand the role of higher education in deteriorated labor conditions, especially in Santiago del Estero. From a methodological standpoint, we use both second and first hand sources, so as to have both a broad and particular view of the topic at hand.

 The first part highlights that the relationship is complex and contradictory. In spite of theory revival on human capital; there is knowledge that besides education, job selection and multiple interacting factors intervene in a complex system of relations.

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Gender and Labor Relations in Santiago del Estero.
Income strategies, labor identity and clientelism

 Graciela Ruiz and Carlos Zurita 
UNSE, gruiz@unse.edu.ar czuritai@unse.edu.ar    

This article, analyzes diverse forms of existing labor practices among women in two neighborhoods in the outskirts of the city of Santiago del Estero. The testimonies gathered in ethnographic interviews give a sense of what these women assign to their labor practices in the construction of social identities. In redefining roles in domestic groups and clashes –more hidden than apparent- for power and control of the family sphere and in the public arena.

The central argument has two aspects: income strategies and political clientelism. The first is addressed through a repertoire of answers and adjustments to the labor market via familiar characteristics and economic articulation. The second, is the articulation and superposition of the labor area in a clientele structure made up by a regime of political and socio-cultural domination that in a province like Santiago del Estero has been present more than fifty years.

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The Case of Juan Jorba: An Experience of Rural Development?

   Mónica Gutvay 
San Luis National University
 mgutvay@fices.unsl.edu.ar

 For many years in our country and especially in the province of San Luis, factors such as railroad privatization, the impact of globalization on production, consumption, values, the acceleration of the industrialization process, have affected rural populations, making them feel they have lost their “reason to be”.

This article appraises the atypical experience brought upon the town of Juan Jorba since 2000. I analyze the municipality as a potential strategic actor, a critical condition from which the population cannot break away. The local government attempts bizarrely to profit from the crisis. This initial process of rural development makes what is “global” well known.

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Agro-Industrial Modernization, Labor Demands and Precariousness.
 The Case of the Fruit-farmers in the Río Negro basin, Argentina

Pedro Tsakoumagkos and Mónica Bendini

Universidad de Luján
Grupo de Estudios Sociales Agrarios (GESA), Universidad del Comahue
rtbendin@uncoma.edu.ar

The purpose of this article is to address the case of the fruit-farmer agro-industrial reform on the Río Negro basin, in the northern Argentine Patagonia.

Various production transformations in labor and employment can, from a visual perspective, be observed as technical changes that impact on the agro-industry. And labor productivity rises in a continuous form and modifies labor positions. Flexibility and deregulation appear –in the neo-liberal discourse- as a response to needs to reduce labor costs in order to adjust to a growing competitive market.

The dimensions of study are continuity in occupation, and qualification of employees connected to contracts. Sources used are questionnaires, interviews, statistics, norms, newspapers, and documents.

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The Course of the Labor Movement in Western Europe
in the 20th Century: Accomplishments, Failures, and Transformations.

 Bruno Groppo

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique  (CNRS),
Universidad de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (CRHMSS)
groppo@univ-paris1.fr

This article tries to appraise, in a necessarily concise format, what took place during a century of labor movement in Western Europe, its accomplishments and failures. The purpose is to illustrate the European labor movements’ significant changes and common tendencies. Our preliminary hypothesis indicates that Western European countries present enough shared characteristics so as to be considered an expressive homogeneous cluster.

The sense of balance depends on the moment it is done. Our vision of European history of the 20th century and the position the labor movement occupies, is without doubt influenced by the events of the last decades, specially the fall of the communist regimes in 1989, the disappearance of the USSR two years later, and the globalization of the economy. This vision is different than that of ten years ago.

Of the changes that affected the labor movement, we must distinguish between those of short duration in the order of "events" and those inscribed as long duration.

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   Labor Sociology Today: The Genealogy of a Paradigm

  Juan José Castillo

  Departamento de Sociología III 

Universidad Complutense de Madrid
jjcastillo@cps.ucm.es

Social sciences establish and reformulate paradigms as "normal" and adapt to circumstances in virtue of multiple influences. As results of social demands, advances in theory and method, also through conceptual hybrids, that other sciences facilitate, be they “social” or not. Introducing concepts and deeper more advanced views that pose questions on the capacity to assume, integrate, "digest" or adapt their complex frames also have consequences.

Aware of these influences, the construction of "labor sociology" comprehension the main emphasis with Latin America should be our own work and evolution. So as to reach a scientific clarification on social relations, if "labor" is the tip of the iceberg, labor sociology should focus on labor existing in each society. (From the Introduction of the article)

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The Condition of Childhood in Argentina.
Sanitary and socio-environmental indicators: progress during convertibilidad

 Artemio López
Equipos de Investigación Social (EQUIS)
equis@ciudad.com.ar

In this study on the Condition of Childhood, recent official data acknowledge that: 1) 41% of children 14 years of age or younger are poor, 2) 12% of the children 14 years of age or younger are indigent, 3) The infant mortality rate in Argentina is three times that of Singapur, 90% superior that of Cuba and 35% larger than Chile, 4) Infant mortality rate in children of mothers with incomplete primary studies or less, is 300% that of mothers who have completed high school of more, 5) Inadequate housing and water make it 64% more likely for a child to die before reaching 2 years of age, 6) Lack of health coverage for the mother and unsatisfied basic needs make it 41% more likely for a child to die before reaching 2 years of age, 7) Pulmonary tuberculosis in children under the age of 5 has increased 153% during “convertibilidad”, 8) Infantile diarrhea has increased 40% during “convertibilidad”, 9) There are 4.890.000 children in the country below 14 years of age, 1.390.000 of them are indigent, 10) If the 1.390.000 indigent minors do not receive external aid, they will not have access to a basic food basket for biological survival, 11) 45% of the children under 4 years of age have no health coverage.

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Regional Labor Market Dynamics in a five year period.
The Case of Gran Resistencia between 1994 and 1999

 Silvia A. Robin and Carlos Crucella
Facultad de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales
Universidad Nacional de Rosario
crucellarobin@arnet.com.ar

At the present time the employment problem exceeds our country’s boundaries, but specific issues of the “convertibilidad” plan have emphasized negative consequences on occupation and income fitting of the first phases of all restructuring productive process, with a clear degree of different effects in occupational situations in the conglomerates of the urban interior.    

This article analyzes the behavior of the main variables that explain the unbalance the occupational situation that Gran Resistencia endured in the last five years. In a scene of deteriorated labor conditions, undergone in the territorial environment containing these conglomerates in the interior of the country.

The labor gap is used, since it expresses the degree of unbalance the labor market confronts, and allows its origins to be acknowledged.  Making it possible to qualify the unbalance in relation to the amounts and the causes.

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Beyond Unemployment Rates:Other Labor Problems in Santiago-La Banda in the Nineties. Changes and distributive features in two forms of sub utilization

 Ramón Antonio Díaz  
Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales
Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero
rad@unse.edu.ar

Economic actions and changes that took place in Argentina since the late 80s (hyperinflation, “convertibilidad”, 1994-95 recession, privatizations, price stability, release of external deregulated markets, additional fiscal control, etc.), have caused important effects in the labor market and therefore in the distribution of income. 

This article analyzes to what degree these changes have been expressed in the urban conglomerates of Santiago del Estero-La Banda. I interpret variations in level and composition of sub utilization of the labor force through two forms: exposed unemployment and visible sub employment, according to the “Encuesta Permanente de Hogares”, a distinction is made among changes that seem stabilized through out the decade, from those reverted with the cycle. To conclude, I analyze the effects sub utilization had on distribution of relevant income dimensions.

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 The Emergence of New Productive Models.
Light Production and Intensified Labor in Spain.

Juan José Castillo
Departamento de Sociología III
Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
jjcastillo@cps.ucm.es

Structured by recent debates about the “emergence of new productive models” and especially around the idea of light production, this article presents, initially a framework of social and sociological debate, based on the contributions of the international Gerpisa network. Then, I explore a relevant case study, the Renault Multinational, going through organized innovation in the Spanish branch of Valladolid, FASA. The work method, with long field studies that go back up to three years, have allowed me to outline the viewpoint of employees and later to identify a fundamental feature in these organizing innovations: intensification of labor. The reduction of half of the plant confirmed that the staff worked twice as much as they did before innovation.

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Poverty and Indigence in Argentina. 
Documentation according to the World Bank, with data about provinces, 
regions and the whole country.

Artemio López
Equipos de Investigación Social (EQUIS)
equis@ciudad.com.ar

This study analyzes the Indigence and Poverty lines for the general population and minors under 14 years of age. The methodological decision common in poverty analysis result in trimming the age group of those under 14 years of age, in an attempt to observe socio-environmental situations of childhood and early adolescence. The strategic social segment measures socio-economical consistency; in countries and regions intending to reflect on the outlook.     

Yet, this unedited essay, examines the spatial distribution and profound differential of poverty. It analyzes regional and provincial behavior for values of Poverty and Indigence estimated by the World Bank for the general population under the age of 14.     

This differential analysis allows us to observe thoroughly the unequal development of the poverty and indigence indicators. If we take 100 as the national average, in northeastern Argentina it escalates to 158 and in Patagonia it falls to 82,5, to mention extreme examples.

To conclude, I present an appraisal of the Indigence and Poverty lines projected for each province and region of the country, ending with a chart of the whole country.

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Basic Principles in the Administration of Social Policies in Argentina

 Ramón Frediani
Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
  ramonfr@iadb.org

Through the examination and evaluation of international experiences, this article presents a synthetic proposal of the basic principles of what the modern administration system of social policies in Argentina should be. The national government annually assigns approximately $17.000 million US dollars to social programs, with very scarce results and low percentages of effectiveness.

This proposal hopes to help unearth the traditional and anachronous political-administrative culture applied in Argentina. So as to attend this vital area of State, based for practically 50 years on programs, actions and unconnected non systematic affairs; ambiguity in managing public resources, lack efficiency in funds, conditioned mostly to personalized and non participatory control, with out concern of effectiveness in assisting the population being addressed.   

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The Vulnerable: Labor and Life Conditions.

Maria Rosa Gómez, 
María Emilia Isorni and Graciela Saber
Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales
Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero
marili@unse.edu.ar 

Productive restructure, recession and unemployment along with the abandonment of protection policies and social security, configure a landscape of deterioration of the poor traditional sectors and also the vulnerability of fractions of the middle class. The latter do not reach a situation of poverty; yet experience an erosion of protection in regards to security and social networks.

From this framework, a most significant contemporary condition is analyzed: vulnerability is expressed as the decline of the middle sector in the nineties.

The conceptual axis is labor and behavior, as seen in loss of employment, prolonged periods of employment search or profound reduction of income. In addition  to definitions of the situation and their repercussions in every day life; and strategy development to ensure the descend is less painful.

In an urban setting of Santiago del Estero, accounts of families going through a process of decline. A case analysis, approached qualitatively at an exploratory level, trying to rescue typical situations, analyzing the construction of sensitive categories of vulnerability.

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Hybrid, Belonging and Locality in the Construction of a National Cuisine

 Eduardo P. Archetti  
Departamento de Antropología
Universidad de Oslo
eduardo.archetti@sai.uio.no

This article argues that what defines a cuisine is, ultimately, the culinary practices of the population who consume certain dishes regularly. Consequently considering themselves experts on valuating the quality of their preparation. Cuisine has common social roots; belonging to the community even when it is broad and heterogeneous, like the case of Argentina.           

The first analysis is about how meat plays a central role in the diet and perception of what is identified as “national.” Then, my observations center on the convergence of pizzerias in Buenos Aires between pizza of Italian origin along with traditional criollo empanadas. These examples bring up issues such as which meals and cuisine belong to a hybrid model and which have become ethnic, at least for the time being.

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Labor Market Professions and Occupations in Santiago del Estero, Argentina, 
during 1869-1914

Alberto Tasso
Conicet
Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero
tasso@arnet.co.ar

This article analyzes changes in the occupational structure of the province during economic and social transitions during the last decades of the 19^th century. An inspection of occupational records for three national censuses; displaying characteristics and suggesting an explanation of the observed changes. Occupations were reclassified according to categories of large groups and subgroups of the CIUO.

The key changes are progressive reduction of the economically active population and manufactured traditional goods; expansion of groups linked to modernization (professionals, technicians, administrative, transportation) which account for inaugurating the transition between two economic-social models functioning, besides the well known aspects affecting feminine employment. In classical theories, the growth of a labor force with scarce qualification is also considered a prior condition for expansion of capitalism. Classified as ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’ occupations, permitting an assessment of more productive sectors permeable to change. Dated during the main impact of this transition between 1895 y 1914.

 Alberto Tasso is a Sociologist from the Universidad Católica Argentina and a PhD  at Universidad de Buenos Aires. A researcher of CONICET and professor at the Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero, and postgraduate studies. He has many publications about Rural Sociology, Agrarian History and Social Development.

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What is left of the "Labor Movement"?
Manners of Reclaiming Labor in the New Argentine Democracy

Marina Farinetti
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales
Universidad de Buenos Aires
marinaf@coneau.edu.ar

This article refers to innovative situations in Argentine labor protest between 1983-1997. The conceptual framework integrates the notions of "collective action repertoire", "structural political opportunities" and "economic moral", developed by Tilly, Tarrow and Thompson, respectively. 

Followed by the classical repertoire of labor protest defined through historical significance. Additionally, principal types of protest described during the above-mentioned period: union protests, “social outburst” and street cuts. Furthermore, new contrasting forms to the “classical repertoire” are analyzed, suggesting substantiate evidence that labor protests repertoire have changed throughout the studied interval. Lastly, innovations are mainly due to the role of Peronism.

  Marina Farinetti is a Political Scientist with a Masters in Social Research from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, where she teaches philosophy. She is a member of the Instituto Gino Germani at the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales at UBA She has written articles about socio-political issues, and is currently doing research on what is known as the social outburst of December 16^th, 1993 in Santiago del Estero.

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Small Scale Agrarian Production in Argentina: Active Policies for Sustainable Development

Rubén de Dios
Facultad de Humanidades yCiencias Sociales
Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero
 rdios@teletel.com.ar

Diverse social actors coexist with in the Argentine agrarian structure. Small producers (minifundistas) have quantitative importance, not for contributing to the agrarian gross product, which is rather insignificant. This assertion is true for the most of agrarian activity. Small scale production has a substantive economic contribution in the perspective of a possible local development sustainable in time; and can be regionally and spatially relativized.

In previous years, focalized programs destined to integrate the “minifundista” sector as an economic actor capable of reaching the gateway of minimum competition, have been designed and executed. A tendency neutralized and over swamped by macroeconomic policies that press on expulsion of the productive system. If this process continues, the short-term outcome would not be viability and disappearance. A state accountable policy, convinced that small scale producers “minifundistas” belong to an economic sector capable of a preponderant role in generating employment, income, and riches locally and regionally.

The subjective diagnose must be saturated, allowing integration of life and survival strategies, supported by actions that consider their diversity.

 Rubén de Dios is a Sociologist from the Universidad Católica Argentina; he has done postgraduate studies in Social Development and Rural Sociology. He currently teaches Compared Rural Processes and Rural Sociology at the Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero. He has several publications on matters related to Rural Sociology, Local Development and Social Policies.

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Occupant Peasants: Integration, Exclusion and Vulnerability of
in Argentina. Case study in the framework of Globalization

Raúl Paz
Conicet
Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero
pazraul@unse.edu.ar

The present article is about occupant peasants in the province of Santiago del Estero in Argentina. Hoping to seek out new meanings and explore processes and phenomena that persistently emerge within the globalization structure.

Three case studies are taken into account. The sites are selected for having strong peasant existence and precarious landownership. Sector diversity is observed at the core of the province. So as to compose a detailed map of the different types of occupant peasants, the rural areas analyzed have different agro-ecological and socio-economic characteristics.

Heterogeneity of occupant peasants is rooted essentially at a structural and strategic level of social reproduction. These two dimensions, endowment of resources and strategies of social reproduction, interact with state intervention (do to focalized policies) and reshape rural social relationships. Lastly the recognition and classification of diverse conditions of social reproduction with in the sector: integration accompanied by stability, exclusion accompanied by survival, and integration via modernization of productive agricultural activities; processes that somehow distinguish ranks of vulnerability in the production systems.

As a final point, the diversity found in the case studies imply occupant peasants are not a unified category, making it inadequate to construct a tendency or exclusive process of social transformation established in the agro.

 Raúl Paz is an Agricultural Engineer, MSC in Rural Extension from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral-INTA and a PhD candidate at Universidad de Buenos Aires. Currently Professor of Rural Sociology working on SPSS management at Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero. Researcher of CONICET. Has several publications regarding issues of rural development, types of producers and cotton labor demands.

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Stratification and Labor:
Images and Magnitudes in Santiago del Estero

Carlos Zurita
Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales
Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero
czurita@unse.edu.ar

This article explores the nature of the stratification system in one of the most straggler provinces of Argentina. Transition and discontinuity of the social structure in Santiago del Estero, is measured through images concerning social class and the magnitude of the socio occupational stratum.

The text may give off the impression that the inequality established in the province is not visibly manifest when compared to other areas. The assumption is, this opaque segmentation between social caps, predominantly among high and middle class, could be explained in terms of the Kuznets curve that correlates the progress of social heterogeneity with economic growth, suggesting that the prolonged underdeveloped and stagnation of Santiago del Estero has barred, clear differentials in life styles and material capital, principally symbolic capital, of the social stratum.

This is convincing when contrasted with other areas. Yet, a close examination at internal provincial configurations, verify the articulation of labor with class systems that show major differentiation, manifested as social polarization processes.

Besides being a descriptive exercise of social classes, the text illustrates particular socio-demographic behaviors that can be revealed in diverse occupational segments.

Carlos Zurita has a PhD in Sociology from the Universidad Católica Argentina. He is former dean of the Facultad de Humanidades, at the Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero. Here he currently teaches Development Sociology. He has been a visiting professor at El Colegio de México, and has numerous publications regarding issues related to labor sociology and analysis of traditional societies.

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