Mujeres, cuidados y producción de alimentos frescos en el norte de la Patagonia, Argentina

Abstract

El propósito de este artículo es dar cuenta de la experiencia de los circuitos de producción de alimentos frescos en pequeña escala que se relacionan con la economía social y con la promoción estatal de la agricultura familiar y de huertas en el norte de la Patagonia argentina.El estudio se ancla en los aportes de la teoría feminista, para comprender las tramas que se sostienen en los territorios, centralmente articuladas por mujeres, visibilizadas durante la pandemia de COVID-19 y reforzadas en la actualidad ante la escalada de aumentos de precios en los alimentos.

This article aims to provide an account for small-scale fresh food production circuits that are related to the social economy and the state promotion of family farming and orchards in northern Patagonia. The study is anchored in the contributions of feminist theory, in order to understand the schemes developed in territories, centrally articulated by women, made visible during the COVID-19 pandemic and currently reinforced in the face of escalating food price increases. From an ethnographic perspective, the research is based on interviews conducted between 2020 and 2021 with women in the region, as well as conversations with state agents linked to urban and peri-urban agriculture and on fieldwork undertaken in the following years, in small-scale fresh food production circuits. This material take us in the investigation of the expansion of orchards in rural and urban spaces in the province of Neuquén, spaces that refer to strategies that guarantee food, in a broad sense of care, from schemes expressing experiences and initiatives tied to collective bets to sustain life in territories.