SOUP KITCHENS IN PERU AND ARGENTINA: WOMEN FACING THE COLLECTIVE NEED TO EAT

Abstract

The collective experience of eating through women-led soup kitchens has been a response to the food emergency and poverty in South American countries for decades. This paper aims to analyze how food programs for soup kitchens have shaped practices of feminization of community work in 2019-2020. The management and organizational strategies employed by women in charge of soup kitchens in General Pueyrredon (Argentina) and Villa el Salvador (Peru) are identified through a comparative analysis. The design of the study is qualitative. There were three case studies in each district on the trajectory of women who began to participate as assistants in the kitchen of the dining room in the 1980s and 1990s and currently manage, coordinate, and organize the dining room. An extension of domestic and care tasks towards the community was identified from their trajectories, which underlies the design and implementation of food policies aimed at the canteens.