By Ana Inés Heras
In December 2023 a new president took office in Argentina. Since the return of democracy after a cruel and violent dictatorship (1976-1983), Argentina has been experiencing periods of public policies oriented towards securing access to basic rights, and periods of public policies oriented towards engrossing the already big fortunes of people who exploit other beings (humans and earthbeings). However, and even if there might be differences in orientation across these perspectives, one must acknowledge that ever since 1974, Argentina started to become a neoliberal nation-state, meaning that the differences in the distribution of income and surplus became more and more obscene. The years of the dictatorship consolidated an economic policy geared towards privatizing public services and engrossing the foreign acquired debt. This became more and more difficult over time. Therefore, the president now in office continues to deepen aspects that have already been in place for decades. This may be a controversial point to be made, since the political debate in Argentina is usually positioned as if there were very different projects at place, but looking at facts over time, it is fairly easy to make visible that people who benefit from other peoples and other beings are making it more and more difficult for others to survive well.
The politics and policies of the president now in office (I don´t write his name on purpose, you can find out in the news) have put forward several different measures by which our country is leaning day by day towards a harsher neoliberal process than it already was. This kind of scenario is making it very difficult for working people to survive, since income for more than fifty percent of our population is under the line of poverty ( as an example). Additionally, other policy measures (e.g., in health, education and housing) are favoring those “who have” over those “who have not”. However, those who “have not” have the willingness to build coalitions, bridge alternatives and search for different ways of doing politics.
One such example of these dynamic coalitions for strengthening a way of life, that is based on living well together, creating support structures and expanding social solidarity ways of relating to one another, is a small organization by the name of INCLUIR Asociación Civil, or as it long name states “Instituto para la Inclusión Social y el Desarrollo Humano” (Institute for Social Inclusion and Human Development, as a rough translation). We are a group of people who have worked together since 2001, and got our legal status in 2003, therefore accounting for more than 20 years of work.
One of our current projects is to support organizations like ours (built as a direct democracy, a small but powerful initiative) to understand the learning experiences that take place when social solidarity, cooperative-like work and relationships are established. We are learning together in collaboration and co-elaboration with several different organizations. This means that we decide in common what aspects we would like to know more about, and how to proceed about this process of joint knowledge generation. In that sense, we collaborate to co-elaborate, that is, we join our bodies to think and work together over matters important to us. One of these matters is related to direct democracy, power relations amongst members that expand possibilities, and the relationship between social solidarity economies and processes of subjective positioning in the sociopolitical sphere.
Some of these organizations are social cooperatives for people suffering from mental health challenges, others are small cooperatives of workers, and some others are rural public schools run by families and students or with small neighborhood groups documenting their memory of struggle for accessing housing. Below you will find some links that will direct you to concrete examples of this type of work.
The results of our process so far shows that even in very strenuous times, like the ones we are traversing now, it is possible to establish and support organizations that build trust, fight for accessing basic rights, and are willing to cooperate with one another. In this respect, since our organization, and the ones with whom we work, have survived and grown for decades, it seems that even with public policies against our values and practices, it is possible to continue surviving. And more: to continue working towards justice.
An urgent question thus comes to mind: What would it be like if public policy, not only in Argentina but the world, would be aligned with cooperative-like, social solidarity perspectives? And also, how could we continue networking worldly to make these ways of living well together become what is expected versus something that is looked at as “on the side”?
On the one hand, as a group of activists, artists, and researchers, we are doing everyday everything we can to support the coalitions in which we participate, so that we can bring forward a practice of solidarity in action. For example, we are working across neighbourhoods (Lugano, Chacarita and Colegiales, in the city of Buenos Aires) to do compost and to invite people to join a network of this activity, so that we can educate ourselves, and be active, about the relationship between human beings and other beings. Some of these activities can be seen here, and since the post is in Spanish, below follows a very brief description of what we accomplished:
“To compost is to take one more step to contribute to a better life, within the possibilities of each community, neighbourhood and city. It also makes us aware of what we eat, and therefore, makes us think (and act) to expand our rights and our interdependence with all living creatures.With the participation of five community organisations from the neighbourhoods of Lugano, Colegiales and Chacarita, an explanatory talk and a hands on activity on COMPOST was held during 2023. Several other similar activities were also conducted during 2024, such as the inauguration of 4 new compost sites, a tour through the compost sites in Colegiales, and a talk in Lugano and Chacarita about the strength that comes out when several different geographical city spots collaborate to put these actions forward”.
The work with COMPOST also links to the activities we do in the Popular Memory Archive of LUGANO, since there is a lot to consider about living conditions in that area of Buenos Aires. LUGANO is the place where several actions were undertaken in the past to secure access to housing for working class people. In the past, for example, a cooperative of workers conducted a long struggle against the military government to be able to provide housing (built by the people and for the people) in that neighbourhood. Over the years, the work of that cooperative and the joint work with other groups have made it possible to document the local history in a Virtual Digital Archive. This work can be seen at Archivo Memoria Popular.
Additionally, if you are able to read in Spanish, you can see this piece as well: Habitar la Villa20 desde la memoria
Below are some links to read about some of the work we have been doing, as a dynamic coalition of practice(s) that foster solidarity as the norm… We have organized them from three perspectives: 1) short pieces and links to concrete examples; 2) analysis on specific processes; 3) conceptual insights on what we do.
Prácticas de lectura y escritura con potencial transformativo. Una investigación colaborativa en contextos escolares, hospitalarios, comunitarios y barriales.
Organizational solidarity in practice in Bolivia and Argentina: Building coalitions of resistance and creativity.
Habitar la Villa20 desde la memoria
Inclusión sociolaboral en clave de salud mental comunitaria: una perspectiva geográfica
Learning and Bilduing in the Work of Heydorn, Pichon-Rivière and Bleger – Connections Between Health, Critical Consciousness and Social Change
Community Economies
About the Author
Ana Inés Heras works with community organizations, cooperatives and self-governed groups in different places in Argentina. She is a National Researcher (CONICET) and a Professor at the National University of San Martín. She is the President of the Instituto para la Inclusión Social y el Desarrollo Humano and the Coordinator of the Programa Aprendizaje & Autogestión.