Abstract

GODOY, Solange. “We’re a family: you fight, you hate each other, you love each other”. Sociabilities from the perspective of women workers of the Buenos Aires metropolitan railroads (Argentina). Trab. soc. [online]. 2023, vol.24, n.41, pp.263-279.  Epub July 01, 2023. ISSN 1514-6871.

With the aim of examining the daily interactions of women railway workers, this article studies the ways in which these women use the familial metaphor in the context of a highly male-dominated activity. To that end, it observes the sociabilities that are built on the notion of a "big railroad family", understood as an identity repertoire that indicates an extended family in terms of day-to-day support systems. It is shown that the notion of family that they evoke does not necessarily imply harmony on the contrary, it embraces the idea of open conflict and unequal relationships. However, a certain kind of destructive information, which is referred to as “family secrets”, rarely crosses the frontier that separates the “inside” from the “outside”. Furthermore, this study identifies and analyses three types of actions categorised as mentoring, comradeship, and paternalism. At a micro-social level of analysis and adopting an interpretative approach, the methodology is based on content analysis of in-depth interviews and on observations carried out in workplaces as well as in a union section, in a context of modernization and gender policies in the Buenos Aires (Argentina) metropolitan railroads.

Keywords : Women railway workers; Family; Sociabilities; Gender.

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