DPU Working Paper - No. 44

Authors: Caroline O. N. Moser

Publication Date: 1985

In Latin American cities low-income women work, not only in their homes and in the factories, but also in their neighbourhood communities. Along with men and children they are involved in residential level mobilisation and struggle over issues of collective consumption. The inadequate provision by the state of housing and local services over the past decades has resulted increasingly in open confrontation as ordinary people organise themselves to acquire land through invasion, or put direct pressure on the state to allocate resources for the basic infrastructure required for survival.

This paper describes the critical role that women play in the formation, organisation and success of local- level protest groups, and considers the implications of their roles, both for the women themselves and for the nature of struggle and consciousness at the point of residence.

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