Convivencia and the Affective Practice of Social Mobilizing in Popular Education in Buenos Aires, Argentina

• In Event: Conceptualizing Convivencia in Formal and Nonformal Education Spaces Internationally

Abstract

This paper discusses the practices of one social movement in Buenos Aires, the Union of Popular Organization’s (UP), whose goal was to assist women of lower socioeconomic conditions in becoming agents of change within their communities, through a series of popular education workshops. Focused on social mobilization and confronting gender-based oppressions, UP activists drew upon affects of pleasure and struggle to manifest a sense of convivencia amongst women in their organization. Such a practice served to not only solidify participants within their organization, but worked to ensure that judges, doctors, police, and employers complied with the laws and rights that had been fought for, and put in place, to protect women in these economically disenfranchised communities.

Throughout this work, the term convivencia is situated within mujerista and Latina feminist epistemologies (Dyrness, 2008; Villenas, 2001). Mujerista scholars call attention to wholeness, humor, confianza and convivencia, as well as personal, emotional, spiritual, collectivist, and survivalist healing strategies in non-traditional learning communities in their struggle against repression.

Such a form the term took within the gender-based workshops was made possible through strategically employed affects that heightened womens’ desire to mobilize. Guided by affect theorists influenced by Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, this paper explores what motivated women to seek out these workshops, as well as their desire to build solidarity amongst themselves and UP’s activism-centered projects. Workshop organizers utilized an affect-based approach to pedagogy designed to engineer an environment conducive to building group solidarity among participants through the use of two distinct camaraderie-building practices – the joys of solidarity and the sadness of struggle.

This paper offers an ethnographic account of the ways UP’s Gender Commision maintained convivencia and solidarity within their social movement, through strategic use of affects in workshops and celebrations. To understand how convivencia was built amongst women in UP’s gender-based workshops, data was collected during a ceremony held to honor participants who completed a series of gender-based workshops focused on mobilizing for gender rights in their communities. Specifically, this included documents and interviews, observations and fieldnotes, stories and speeches of activists, educators, and participants of the workshops.

There is a general lack of attention given toward affects that bring diverse groups of people to participate in social movements, what makes such practices worthwhile to them, as well as why they may personally and/or politically decide to mobilize and continue the work of fighting for basic human rights within their communities. This paper offers insights into how women in economically disenfranchised communities fight for improved social, political, and cultural issues affecting their lives. Through the affective use of the body in communion with other bodies over brews of mate, song, dance, food, dialogues and street mobilizations, the gender-based workshop’s attention to convivencia made it possible for women to manifest feelings of belonging, all the while constructing solidarity and commitment within the UP movement. The study of convivencia, in this way, broadens our understanding of how human togetherness and social change is made possible, particularly for those disenfranchised by systemic oppressions.

Author

• Jennifer Lee O'Donnell, San Diego State University