Breaking the weakest link. Nurses’ job precariousness, exposure to violence, conflicts and care strategies

Abstract

In this article we will address the nurses’ care work conditions, the violence they experiment as working women, and we will also look into the care strategies and resistances woven among them. The care practices to which we will refer develop in the paid work relations context within the public and private health system fields of Cuyo region, Argentina. The analysis is carried out through a critical feminist approach based on inputs from the disciplinary convergence of the sociology of social relations of sex, the psychodynamics of work, the materialist feminism and the theories of care. The research develops under a qualitative methodology, using in-depth interviews in order to trace the current labor conditions and the violence experienced by women within the environment of sexual division of labor. The global context affected by the COVID-19 pandemic uncovers the vulnerability and precariousness of our lives, and points out the importance of care work. Taking into account the existing strengthening of the connection of police control with care control we seek to provide tools that contribute to a better understanding of the nature of care work. We aim to achieve this from a perspective that proposes to incorporate into care practices all the different existing discourses, subjectivities, emotions, and power relations.