Autor/es
Descripción
ver mas
Colaborador
Oliva, Andrea A.
Acha, Omar
Materias
Spatial Coverage
Temporal Coverage
Siglo XX
Idioma
spa
Extent
258 p.
Derechos
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 2.0 Genérica (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Formato
application/pdf
Identificador
Cobertura
7593303
Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (autonomus city)
Siglo XX
Abstract
The thesis addresses the configuration of the Social Service profession based on the transformations of the social assistance policy, socio-occupational insertion and professional practice, in the City of Buenos Aires in the mid-twentieth century. For this task, the documentary corpus surveyed is composed of records of international congresses and conferences, documents from institutions linked to assistance and Social Service, bulletins and magazines from the training centers, and articles and books prepared by the training leaders, as well as by the social visitors and workers themselves.
One of the characteristics that Social Assistance presented in this phase was the quest, at least formally, for its centralization and / or coordination in the hands of the State. However, the limits of its concrete effectiveness are evidenced in the permanent overlapping of spheres, areas and sectors that intervened in the treatment of “social problems”.
Within the welfare policy implemented in the first Peronism, a central tension that we are interested in pointing out is that although the government aimed at creating an institutional structure to hierarchize and centralize social assistance ‒through the National Directorate of Social Assistance‒ it begot in parallel the Eva Perón Foundation, with an intimate state economic-political relationship. This shows that the welfare policy was not a circumstantial issue on their agenda, nor could it be “freed” from the bureaucratization and impersonality of the state apparatus, in addition to the differential political capitalization that could be developed from each space.
At the same time, a familiarist imprint prevails in the welfare policy of the first Peronism. That is, it did not respond to a foundation of individual citizenship, but rather its access was restricted by the characteristics of the family group to which it belonged and, ultimately, the realization or scope of the right to individual / citizen assistance was conditioned by family law, discharging in this area the responsibility for the final reproduction of its members.
This trend is framed in the post-World War II context, when family policy was erected in defense of a prototype of a (Western) modern nuclear family, that is, heteronormative, monogamous, permanent, based on a clear traditional division of the gender roles and for reproductive purposes exclusively. In this direction a series of diverse theoretical, ideological and religious perspectives, such as positivism, eugenics and christianisms, added their contributions.
On the other hand, the expansion of social policies was translated into the expansion of job opportunities for social assistants / visitors, who managed to occupy jobs both in the preceding institutions and in those created during first Peronism. Regarding the occupational field, it was a moment in which job placement continued to be structured and extended (for example in the health and judicial system), as well as new areas were promoted (such as education and industry). The professionalization process was deepened, both through the search to delimit the responsibilities between visitors and social workers, and in defining the professional profile to be formed.
The classification of needs / users implied the elaboration of criteria of selectivity or coverage by the social policies and for this task the intervention of the Social Service was required. It was argued that professional intervention would be socially legitimized by the management of "rational / expected" criteria for the delivery of resources, although direct contact with users also came into play to define the "merit" of the benefit. Another aspect that was consolidated in the middle of the 20th century was the classification of “intervention methods”. For this task, the role of the Pan American Union was crucial. In this period, Social Service was already considered as a "science" and "its methods" of "case, group and organization of the collectivity / community" were spread internationally, which had a prompt local reception.
The intervention of the Social Service was at the service of shaping and consolidating "the family", promoting its "stability", which implied the prolongation of the human species and the reconstruction of households, when possible, either by reinforcing conjugal relationship or the reengagement of parents or relatives with the children.
Another of the demands historically assumed by social workers was to educate women from the subalternized sectors, for example, in parenting and domestic economics, for the appropriate training of their person in charge and the good governance of the household. In summary, we argue that in the professional practice of our study period it is evident the deep mark left by the heteronormative sexual system and how it had an impact on attitudes about sex, family arrangements and concerns about motherhood, among others issues.
One of the characteristics that Social Assistance presented in this phase was the quest, at least formally, for its centralization and / or coordination in the hands of the State. However, the limits of its concrete effectiveness are evidenced in the permanent overlapping of spheres, areas and sectors that intervened in the treatment of “social problems”.
Within the welfare policy implemented in the first Peronism, a central tension that we are interested in pointing out is that although the government aimed at creating an institutional structure to hierarchize and centralize social assistance ‒through the National Directorate of Social Assistance‒ it begot in parallel the Eva Perón Foundation, with an intimate state economic-political relationship. This shows that the welfare policy was not a circumstantial issue on their agenda, nor could it be “freed” from the bureaucratization and impersonality of the state apparatus, in addition to the differential political capitalization that could be developed from each space.
At the same time, a familiarist imprint prevails in the welfare policy of the first Peronism. That is, it did not respond to a foundation of individual citizenship, but rather its access was restricted by the characteristics of the family group to which it belonged and, ultimately, the realization or scope of the right to individual / citizen assistance was conditioned by family law, discharging in this area the responsibility for the final reproduction of its members.
This trend is framed in the post-World War II context, when family policy was erected in defense of a prototype of a (Western) modern nuclear family, that is, heteronormative, monogamous, permanent, based on a clear traditional division of the gender roles and for reproductive purposes exclusively. In this direction a series of diverse theoretical, ideological and religious perspectives, such as positivism, eugenics and christianisms, added their contributions.
On the other hand, the expansion of social policies was translated into the expansion of job opportunities for social assistants / visitors, who managed to occupy jobs both in the preceding institutions and in those created during first Peronism. Regarding the occupational field, it was a moment in which job placement continued to be structured and extended (for example in the health and judicial system), as well as new areas were promoted (such as education and industry). The professionalization process was deepened, both through the search to delimit the responsibilities between visitors and social workers, and in defining the professional profile to be formed.
The classification of needs / users implied the elaboration of criteria of selectivity or coverage by the social policies and for this task the intervention of the Social Service was required. It was argued that professional intervention would be socially legitimized by the management of "rational / expected" criteria for the delivery of resources, although direct contact with users also came into play to define the "merit" of the benefit. Another aspect that was consolidated in the middle of the 20th century was the classification of “intervention methods”. For this task, the role of the Pan American Union was crucial. In this period, Social Service was already considered as a "science" and "its methods" of "case, group and organization of the collectivity / community" were spread internationally, which had a prompt local reception.
The intervention of the Social Service was at the service of shaping and consolidating "the family", promoting its "stability", which implied the prolongation of the human species and the reconstruction of households, when possible, either by reinforcing conjugal relationship or the reengagement of parents or relatives with the children.
Another of the demands historically assumed by social workers was to educate women from the subalternized sectors, for example, in parenting and domestic economics, for the appropriate training of their person in charge and the good governance of the household. In summary, we argue that in the professional practice of our study period it is evident the deep mark left by the heteronormative sexual system and how it had an impact on attitudes about sex, family arrangements and concerns about motherhood, among others issues.
Título obtenido
Doctora de la Universidad de Buenos Aires en Ciencias Sociales
Institución otorgante
Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales