Doctoral Dissertation Research: New Urban Territories and the Geography of Precarious Labor

像许多其他发展中国家的城市一样，阿根廷布宜诺斯艾利斯的城市外围长期以来一直是一个高度贫困和生活条件不稳定的地方。许多社区缺乏饮用水和污水处理系统，居民依靠非正规就业为生，居民自己盖房子，往往在垃圾填埋场旁边或其他危险地点。这些地区在阿根廷2001年的经济危机中遭受了巨大损失，一些地区的失业率高达50%，许多人无法获得基本服务，包括电力和自来水。这个博士论文研究项目将研究城市边缘地区对经济危机的基层反应，特别是失业工人运动（Movimientos de Trabajadores Desocupados—MTDs）的组织，该组织是在2001年经济危机之后创建的，旨在提供替代的社会和经济机会。博士生将解决以下问题：(1)MTDs如何使用地域组织策略来应对城市边缘的特定条件？(2) MTD的替代经济实践有哪些？这些实践在满足参与者的基本需求和产生新的社会关系方面产生了什么影响？该项目将重点关注城市外围不同地区的三个MTDs，这些MTDs采用不同的策略和实践来维持其成员的生计，并挑战日常生活日益缺乏可预测性或稳定性的问题。学生将使用各种定性方法来回答这些问题，包括深度访谈，参与者观察，以及与每个MTD的参与性映射。本项目将采用跨学科的方法来理解全球经济中不断变化的劳资关系。该项目将从失业者的角度出发，探讨当代资本主义对边缘人群的影响以及这些人的反应。该项目将有助于地理学、发展研究和人类学对多样化和替代性经济的研究，探索人们形成经济、社会和空间关系的不同方式。该项目将从失业运动的角度提供见解，增强人们了解受经济衰退影响最严重的人如何经历经济衰退并在危机时期创造自己的生存手段的能力。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

Like many other cities in developing nations, the urban periphery of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has long been a site of high poverty and precarious living conditions. Many neighborhoods lack potable water and sewage systems, residents survive on informal employment, and occupants build their own houses, often alongside landfills or in other hazardous locations. These areas suffered enormously during Argentina's 2001 economic crisis, creating unemployment levels of up to 50 percent in some areas and causing many people to lose access to basic services, including electricity and running water. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine grassroots responses in the urban periphery to the economic crisis, especially the organization of the Movements of Unemployed Workers (Movimientos de Trabajadores Desocupados -- MTDs), which were created to provide alternative social and economic opportunities in the wake of the 2001 economic crisis. The doctoral student will address the following questions: (1) How have the MTDs used territorial organizational strategies to respond to the specific conditions in the urban periphery? (2) What are the alternative economic practices of the MTD and what effects have these practices had in terms of meeting the basic needs of participants and producing new social relations? The project will focus on three MTDs in different parts of the urban periphery that employ different strategies and practices in order to sustain the livelihoods of their members and challenge the increasing paucity of predictability or stability of everyday life. The student will use a variety of qualitative methods in order to answer these questions, including in-depth interviews, participant-observation, and participatory mapping with each MTD.This project will take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding changing labor relations in the global economy. By starting from the perspective of the unemployed, the project will explore the effects of contemporary capitalism on marginalized populations and the responses of those people. The project will contributes to work in geography, development studies, and anthropology on diverse and alternative economies, exploring the different ways in which people form economic, social and spatial relations. The project will provide insights from the perspective of unemployed movements, enhancing capabilities to glimpse how those most affected by economic downturns experience them and create their own means of survival in times of crisis. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.