“Neither jungle nor desert”: an approach to the study of occupational health in sub-Saharan communities on the Atlantic coast

Abstract

This article is structured with preliminary data from fieldwork with an ethnographic perspective in the context of a doctoral thesis at the National University of Quilmes between 2019 and the present. The main objective is to present the central theme of the research: occupational health in sub-Saharan communities on the Atlantic Coast of Argentina. Sub-Saharan migrations have increased considerably since the year 2000 in our country and despite the fact that migrations from the African continent do not originate from the 20th century, the presence of Afro-descendants in this region is a novelty among locals and tourists. The argumentative logic of this writing is based on the fact that this estrangement is built from the role of the state in the construction of nationality and its impact on the reinforcement and creation of physical and symbolic borders. Notions of otherness generate tensions and practices of exclusion and discrimination of ethnically marked groups. These practices, evidenced in work contexts, entail particular subjective experiences on the part of workers that need to be analyzed from the perspective of the social actors themselves within the framework of the health-disease-attention-care process.