Abstract

URSINO, Sandra Valeria. Socio-spatial representations of workers and former workers of the YPF-La Plata Refinery (1993-2015). An analysis from the imaginary and urban experience. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.44, n.1, pp.45-72.  Epub Nov 16, 2021. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v44n1.87885.

This work analyzes the material and symbolic links that the workers and former workers of the YPF-La Plata- Argentina Refinery establish with the place they live and work. For this, is recorded the importance of industrial work and socio-economic processes in the spaces of daily life and in the spatial representations that subjects build with urban space.

The national oil company settled in Ensenada in 1922 changing the urban and social dynamics of this place as well as that of its neighboring city, Berisso. In 1993 the company is privatized, generating layoffs and outsourcing of labor, with a strong impact on the social and urban structure.

The interest in studying this social group and its links with the city lies in the fact that privatization generated a social manifestation that resulted in the appropriation of some urban spaces (factory, streets. and neighborhoods) and in the deconstruction of meanings linked to the source of work. This scenario crossed part of the imaginary of the workers who survived the dismissal but it also settled in the memory of the youngest who work today.

The methodological approach is qualitative, based on the in-depth interview with both groups of workers, and on participant observation in the neighborhoods surroun-ding the factory. It is complemented with urban cartographies: imaginary, urban tracks and cognitive maps, as theoretical-methodological tools that allow analyzing the symbolic appropriation of the city by political and social subjects with an impact on community life.

Descriptors: identity, labor relations, mental representation, urban space.

Keywords : Argentina; industrial work; La Plata; social representations; urban cartographies; YPF refinery.

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