Reproductive labor in rural areas. Female goat producers and female migrant farm workers in Mendoza (Argentina)

Abstract

This article sets out to analyze the reproductive labor carried out in rural areas of Mendoza province, Argentina. To this end, we retrieved and compared empirical data from two qualitative research works conducted between 2012 and 2018 with female goat producers and female migrant farm workers, which allowed us to find singularities in every case, as well as common aspects in their reproductive labors. In order to provide empirical evidence to contribute to the feminist and/ or gender debate regarding care and domestic work, this writing is structured by sections; the first one describes basic methodological characteristics of reference studies; the second one recovers antecedents on reproductive work in rural areas of Latin America; the third one refers to some aspects of Mendoza agricultural context and then focuses on the cases, particularly on describing and reflecting on the reproductive labor experiences of both women groups studied. Finally, the conclusions seek to highlight the singularities that reproductive labor acquires in rural contexts, the porosity of its boundaries with productive activities, the simultaneity of these burden activities in the daily life of female workers, and the dynamism of said labors associated with agricultural production seasonality and cycles of nature.