From Industrial Paternalism to Labor Flexibilization: (Re)production of Inequalities in Oil Cities, 1907-2018

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the processes of socio-spatial (re)configuration and production of new inequalities in two oil cities in Latin America in relation to the spatialization of industrial activity and the processes of labor relations flexibilization during the last decades. We seek to understand the socio-territorial transformations in Barrancabermeja (Colombia) and Comodoro Rivadavia (Argentina) through an approach to the relationship between the international oil market and mobility, real estate and labor markets of the territories in which production is locally articulated. We propose a comparative, multi-scalar perspective based on qualitative and quantitative sources in a theoretical framework from which we conceive space in its double condition of producer and product, historical and dynamic.