Abstract
This chapter analyzes the experiences of labor insertion of 30 Paraguayan women in the Paraná Tri-Border Area (TBA) (between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay). Through their stories, it inquires into how they develop trade strategies to face the slowdown of the most popular commercial circuit in the Paraná Tri-Border Area (TBA), known in the literature as the circuito sacoleiro [bag-carriers’ circuit]. The first section starts by giving the theoretical background based on studies that show the articulating relationship between border trade and the women’s experience in this region. Then, analyzing in depth the empirical data, the chapter shows how trade is a fundamental labor niche for the interviewees, which allows them to develop strategies to reconcile their productive and reproductive overloads. Furthermore, it describes the women’s experiences in three commercial niches: on street stalls on the Paraguayan side of the border, in stores or on street stalls on the Brazilian side, and the cross-border smuggling of agricultural products from Brazil to Paraguay. By considering the empirical evidence collected, it concludes with some analytical reflections that complement the previous debates.
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Notes
- 1.
In Brazilian Portuguese, as well as alluding to the fruit, the expression “laranja” [orange] is a synonym for a “cover man”.
- 2.
The expression alludes to the way they sell their goods: using little folding tables “mesitas” which they erect on the streets every day (Rabossi, 2011, p. 86).
- 3.
In the boom of the influx of Brazilian shoppers going to Ciudad del Este (in 1998), the Federación de Trabajadores de la Vía Pública de Paraguay [The Paraguayan Federation of Street Sellers] counted 6000 mesiteros/as in the locality (Rabossi, 2011, p. 86).
- 4.
Only one interviewee told us that she preferred to work on the Paraguayan side because she was more confident about the knowledge needed regarding carrying out the job in her country of origin: “I only work here, nowhere else. Because I have more experience here: I know the job, I know how to work, where to get merchandise, everything like that” (Lirio, July 30, 2019).
- 5.
Other women pointed out that they accessed start-up capital through credit unions: organizations that allow women who have no access to the banking system an alternative to generating capital with low-interest rates (see Chap. 6).
- 6.
- 7.
Among those who do not work in commerce (six women), the job niches divide in the following way: two work in restaurants (RBA as a waitress, Clara as a cook); one, Guerrera, works as an operator in cold storage; two are cleaners (Águila in a private residence and G, in a public office); one, Angélica, works for a local authority.
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Acknowledgments
This chapter was translated from Spanish to English by Christine Ann Hills. The authors thank the National Research and Development Agency of Chile (ANID) for funding the studies that gave rise to this chapter through the Fondecyt Project 1190056, “The Boundaries of Gender Violence: Migrant Women’s Experiences in South American Border Territories” (2019–2023).
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Guizardi, M., Nazal, E., Magalhães, L., Stefoni, C. (2021). Engendering Border Trade Circuits. In: Guizardi, M. (eds) Ultra-Intensity Patriarchy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85750-9_7
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