People
María Sosa
ERI/PS2 Public Research Fellow
María Mónica Sosa Vásquez is a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology at the Graduate Center and an Adjunct lecturer at Lehman College. Her current research focuses on how sovereign debt and financial indebtedness have become sites of struggle for transfeminist movements in Buenos Aires, Argentina. María is a 2025 ERI/PS2 Summer Public Research Fellow.
Stirring a big pot of lentil stew, Fernanda told us how many feminists like her left unions and progressive parties after realizing their ideas and experiences of gender violence went unheard by the compañeros (men-comrades).
Others nodded in agreement as they drifted closer, drawn by the smell of the stew. Luisa added that something shifted when Ni Una Menos ((“Not One Fewer”) broke into Argentina’s public scene (2015). “At least now,” she stated, “it’s harder for compañeros to ignore the compañeras (woman-comrades), and we are better prepared to stand in solidarity with each other.”
That afternoon, we gathered at the olla popular transfeminista (“transfeminist common pot”) of Movida Ciudad—a feminist collective founded in late 2024. This space became an affective shelter, particularly amidst what many transfeminists describe as a time of repliegue (“retreat”) for the movement that flooded the streets since 2015 and obtained the legalization of abortion (2020).
After moving from being a ‘bad word’ to a powerful cultural force following 2015, feminism is once again being dismissed as excessive, annoying, or irrelevant. Today’s ongoing hostility is linked to the far-right wing president Javier Milei’s promotion of anti-“woke” discourse and his legitimisation of attacks on women and LGBTIQ+.
Nevertheless, the gathering around the stew demonstrated that the movement continues to bear fruit by fostering solidarity in the face of economic adjustment and repression. As Verónica Gago and Luci Cavallero remind us, ollas populares (common kitchens) nourish against poverty and resignation. In the Southern Cone’s political tradition, ollas populares multiply during economic crises as it has been the case since Milei took office
However, Movida Ciudad is not organizing an olla popular but an olla popular transfeminist. Naming it as such insists on the validity of a perspective constantly under attack—one that resists what Rita Segato calls the “pedagogy of cruelty,” the normalization of life-threatening acts and the desensitization to others’ suffering.
Another aspect of the pedagogy of cruelty is Argentina’s debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), acquired in 2018. Although this debt predates Javier Milei’s government, the economic adjustments and repressive measures stemming from this situation have intensified.
The burden of austerity and financial indebtedness continues to fall disproportionately on women and LGBTIQ+ people, who also shoulder the bulk of unpaid domestic labor (Gago & Cavallero, 2019, 2023).
With the support of the ERI/PS2 Summer Fellowship, I joined the everyday work of women and LGBTIQ+ activists. Through protests, workshops, assemblies, and endless rounds of mate and coffee, I witnessed first-hand how transfeminist collectives reproduce daily life amid a far-right government.
I discovered that sharing life stories, memories and experiences — especially those related to activism during economic crises — in places such as kitchens, plazas and protest sites, fosters a sense of closeness and solidarity. Departing from the widely held view of an incomplete democratic project and the resulting disillusionment, these life stories reveal not only wounds and scars, but also joy, possibility and political horizons yet to be imagined.
As an ERI/PS2 Summer Fellow, I wrote an op-ed in Spanish at the end of my preliminary fieldwork to share with the organizations I worked with and collaborated with (including Ni Una Menos, Movida Ciudad, Inquilinos Agrupados, La Mocha Celis, and AMMAR). Once these organizations reviewed and approved the piece for submission, I translated it into English. The bilingual op-ed highlights the political alliances within the current Argentine political landscape, strengthening the connection between Southern and Northern transfeminisms. Additionally, it plays a crucial role in my PhD research, which incorporates engaged and bilingual ethnographic practices in its methodological approach.
