Browsing by Autor "Laura Porras-Santanilla"

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“El papá de mi hijo es la calle”: conciliando el trabajo productivo y reproductivo en las calles de Bogotá
(Universidad Icesi, 2019) Laura Porras-Santanilla; Andrés Rodríguez-Morales
This paper aims at studying how female street vendors who live in Bogotá with children between the ages of 0 and 5 years reconcile work and family responsibilities, and argues that law does not take into account their needs when creating legal mechanisms aimed at reconciling the tension between family and work, or when designing the rules that apply to public child care services in Bogotá. More specifically, we argue that the universe of possibilities that female street vendors have to reconcile paid and unpaid care work is particularly limited; that within those possibilities women prefer to leave their children in the care of their closest family members, or pay for “private” child care services; and that none of the women interviewed chose as their first option public child care services nor used the mechanisms that labor law provides to reconcile family and work, either because they are not applicable or they do not take into account their real needs.
¿Mujeres al margen? Estudios empíricos en trabajo y derecho
(Universidad Icesi, 2019) Lina Buchely; Laura Porras-Santanilla; Natalia Ramírez-Bustamante
The <i>game</i>: Description and analysis of how street vendors keep working on the streets of Bogotá despite state intervention
(SAGE Publishing, 2022) Laura Porras-Santanilla
Day-to-day management of street vending is much more a matter of starting negotiations, mediating between the interests of distinct groups, and making agreements, than it is about enforcing confusing and at times contradictory legal mechanisms with limited effectiveness. Based on the results of extended fieldwork in a low-income outer locality of Bogotá (Ciudad Bolívar), I will argue that street vendors and state representatives interact around a four-step dynamic known as the ‘ game’, which provides them with ‘working stability’ or high degrees of legitimacy, despite frequent arbitrary – and not just discretionary – interventions from the police and other state representatives. In short, the game works as follows: complaints against vendors build-up and interventions take place. Street vendors use different resistance strategies, but tension intensifies, then crisis is reached. As both parties have strong incentives to negotiate, they reach basic coexistence agreements. Vendors fail to comply with the agreements because regulations made to sanitize poverty and to hide the face of misery are rarely applicable. The cycle restarts. I conclude by arguing that efforts to eliminate or limit street vending will not be successful or sustainable until the state makes the political and fiscal commitment to offer substantial employment programs and/or guarantee a minimum income to vulnerable families.