Community strategies and the right to health in the fruit and vegetable belt of General Pueyrredon, Buenos Aires province

Abstract

The deepening of the agro-industrial model and the marginalization of family farming in Argentina lead to emerging health problems related to water pollution and exposure to agrochemicals in rural areas. These coexist with gender-based violence and the violation of the rights of rural women and children in contexts of ethnic and social discrimination. With this work, I hope to contribute to the gender and health perspective in anthropological studies of new ruralities. Its objective is to analyze, from an intersectional perspective, the community-based strategies deployed by the territorial networks of the fruit and vegetable belt of General Pueyrredon, in the southeast of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to address the right to health. Using a collaborative ethnographic approach, we conducted interviews, participant observation, and social mapping with representatives of the territorial networks in the Rural West Zone and Batán during 2023 and 2024. I review community-based proposals to address emerging issues such as gender-based violence, women's access to justice, sexual and reproductive rights, access to clean water, food sovereignty, and recreation for children and adolescents. I discuss the results from a community-based perspective on ecofeminist positions, which allow us to review the right to health from broader perspectives linked to gender relations and the environment. I conclude that new rural communities are reviving traditional values ​​and forms of social organization that were devastated by globalization.