Las transformaciones en las prácticas de los sectores populares organizados a partir de la implementación de la Asignación Universal por Hijo

Abstract

This article explores the reconfigurations that took place in the relationship between popular sectors and the State. We analyze the way in which the Universal Child Benefit (by its acronym in Spanish AUH) was embodied in networks of local sociability of a socioterritorial organization, the Movimiento Justicia y Libertad in La Plata, from 2011 to 2015. We affirm that the implementation of the AUH carried out two simultaneous transformations in the practices of organized popular sectors. On the one hand, the organizations reproduced the official statement which affirms that this policy is handled directly by the national State. As an effect, the organizations grew apart from the disruptive actions through which they had adopted a leading role in the mediation of social policy. As a consequence, the individualization of popular sectors took place. On the other hand, the organizations reconfigured their territorial work by taking part in other social programs. The cooperatives of the Ingreso Social con Trabajo programme (better known as “Argentina Trabaja”) gained a central role in the local networks due to the resources and requests to the State they were able to articulate. This article reconstructs empirically the unsolved tensions that both processes generated in the experiences related to citizenship and inequality, especially for women.