Working and weaving networks among women under house arrest: preliminary reflections from the development of a productive project

Abstract

This paper aims to present a series of advances within the framework of the Project “Accompaniment of micro-enterprises and strengthening of containment networks for women under house arrest in La Plata” of the Articular program of the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity of the Nation. This project is in the execution stage and it is proposed to develop and sustain pasta micro-enterprises together with seven women under house arrest in different neighborhoods of the city of La Plata, as well as to strengthen the containment networks during the last stretch of their custodial sentence. Currently, fortnightly visits are made to detained women, the purpose of which is to identify and overcome the difficulties for the consolidation of the enterprises; as well as generating support spaces for the difficulties that their condition presents. During the visits, in addition, a practical work space is generated to learn how to make simple and filled pasta. On the other hand, collective workshops are held with the project participants to reflect and debate about the symbolic violence that obstructs their consolidation as active subjects in the popular economy; as well as to build collective spaces that strengthen links between them and with the cooperative dynamics. The diagnosis presented in the following pages does not seek to be a representative sample of the detention conditions of women with home detention, but rather to account for some of the most relevant characteristics of the women with whom we are working.