Reworking place, gender, and power: Informal work in urban Argentina

This dissertation is a geographic and feminist analysis of informal work in urban Argentina. While informal work has for decades been a central part of the economy of Buenos Aires, and indeed of all Latin American countries, a climate of increasing globalization and neo-liberalization of the economy has heightened the importance of this type of work not only in Argentina but throughout the world. While the sustained interest by academics in informal work processes over the last two decades is indicative of the growing importance of this type of work to both individuals and to the global (and formal) economy, the focus on informal work as a primarily, if not exclusively, economic activity has obscured the ways in which work may serve as a constitutive site of other socio-spatial processes. In this dissertation, I argue that informal work is a social, political, and spatial activity as well as an economic activity, and that in order to truly understand the significance of an increased dependence on informal work both within Argentina and across the globe, its non-economic functions must also be at the core of analysis rather than simply peripheral add-ons.; In this dissertation I approach informal work from the perspective that it is not simply an economic process in order to address three primary questions. First, what is informal work in the context of Buenos Aires? Because informal work is necessarily defined by the local institutional context (i.e. what is formal or legal), no clear answer exists regarding what form informal work may take in this place-specific context. Secondly, what is the meaning of informal work to individuals, communities, and as a component of global-scale social processes? And third, how does informal work function as not only as an economic activity, but as a social and spatial activity as well? To address these final two questions, I focus on informal work as a political process of domination and resistance, a social process that draws on and contributes to gendered ideals and practices, and a geographic processes that both makes use of and reproduces place at a variety of scales.; Information derived from in-depth, semi-structured interviews that were conducted between January and November 2002 form the basis for this analysis. These interviews were conducted with 95 informal workers from both middle- and low-income groups who were chosen to capture a wide diversity of experiences and perceptions. This interview data is supported by ethnographic observation conducted during the same period as well as secondary document analysis.