“If we Share, it is More than Enough”. Networks of Communitarian Caring among Women Migrants in the Great Buenos Aires against COVID19

Abstract

Departing from a participatory-research-action that started in 2019 in a segregated zone of the Municipality of San Martín in the Great Buenos Aires, this article proposes to analyze women migrants’ strategies to deal with the health emergency related to the COVID19 pandemic. We will show that the migrant population uses their social networks in a multiplicity of collective strategies of integration in this territory of high social vulnerability, which become even more important in a context of crisis. It is mostly women migrants who, through their organizations and knowledge, are containing the health emergency in these popular neighborhoods, and so they cover the void of the state. Taking this into consideration, we use the concept of communitarian caring to understand women’s strategies and their importance in the creation and strengthening of networking.

Keywords
women; migrants; networks; communitarian caring; COVID19