Organizaciones sociales en el barrio de La Boca: cambios y permanencias en un contexto de crisis

This paper examines the transformations that popular kitchens –a type of social organization that has increased exponentially in the La Boca neighborhood, an area in the south of Buenos Aires–, has experienced in its logic and actions as a result of the exacerbation of the Argentinean crisis between 1999 and 2000. Within this context, the neighborhood emerges as natural sphere of action and organization, becoming a forum of interaction between various actors and grass-roots organizations where social-territorial militancy assumes a variety of characteristics. There, popular kitchens are linked to a single, heterogeneous group comprising other organizations from different political horizons. Beyond the most obvious effects of impoverishment linked to the crisis, why have popular kitchens proliferated? This article seeks to establish their incidence as a complement to the resources obtained by low-income families and to determine other socio-political implications characteristic of their participation in the neighborhood network. To this end, it undertakes a comparative analysis on the basis of a survey of neighborhood social organizations and in-depth interviews carried out in 1999 and 2002. The description of both moments enables certain trends to be analyzed: the changes in the processes of institutionalization, the activities undertaken by these organizations and the characteristics of self-organization or service provision. In this way, the authors delimit a particular place which enables the emergence of new socio-political mediations to be characterized in the context of the crisis. The relationship with the state, through the analysis of certain food programs implemented by the City Government or intensified as a result of the crisis, of which popular kitchens are a vital element, constitute a key variable for understanding this place.