It all happens (to us) at once: Youth, precariousness and policy in Argentina

Abstract

In this chapter I am concerned with analyzing, from a multidimensional approach to inequality (Reygadas, 2004), processes of (re) production of inequalities embodied in youth sectors in Latin America, with a focus on Argentina. For this I will work with the three dimensions of the author´s analytical model (individual, interactional and structural), and I will approach the situations from three elements: the setting, the actors and public policies. The data used are constructed from an ethnographic approach, co-work in socio-community work, interviews and documents in the Buenos Aires region. The notion of intersectionality (class, gender, age, territory, ethnic, racial) will allow us to combine and explain different forms of precariousness in the lives of young people from popular sectors. If the above is a synchronic look, the diachronic look will lead us to explain processes of accumulation of disadvantages; and taking into account both temporalities, we will be able to understand how inequality networks of different scales are interwoven. The key to political configurations will also include the approach to tensions and disputes for equality, as positions of collective action or militant cause, all in a dialogue situated with the socio-historical processes of constitution of the state, of rights and of the citizenship in the country.