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AbstractWage gaps constitute a major component of workplace inequality. While scholars have explored the causes and consequences of differences in pay, very few question the basic presumption that workers are paid differently in the first place. Drawing on ethnographic research in a worker cooperative with a policy of equal pay, this article analyses how the organization compensated its members in the context of low wages, economic uncertainty, and insufficient social benefits. Over time, I found that members justified small variations that led to wage difference without amending their commitment to pay equity. This was made possible through a system of survival finance, a set of compensation practices that supports the reproduction of both individual members and the organization as a whole. Whereas members understood money wages as market‐based incentives for labor, the cooperative enacted its principles of equality and fairness by compensating members with alternative currencies (time) and additional benefits (zero interest rate credit) to help make ends meet. The article concludes by reflecting on the challenges of equalizing pay and its implications for reducing workplace inequality.

Worker-recuperated businesses, like the Hotel Bauen highlighted in this essay, are organizations that were closed by their private owners, occupied by their workers, and restarted as cooperatives. As the author learned over the course of her fieldwork, many were established not only to save jobs, but also to create better jobs. Studies of workplaces in the Global North often detail how workplace policies can lessen the degree or severity of unequal treatment. But some organizations guided by principles of democracy, justice, and self-management take a more radical approach: to actively promote equality at work.

AbstractThis teaching and learning guide accompanies the article, "Gender In/equality in Worker‐owned Businesses," which reviews existing literature on gender in businesses with employee stock ownership plans, worker cooperatives, and communes. Worker ownership has attracted renewed interest as a possible solution to the social and economic problems confronting our society. In worker‐owned businesses, workers have greater control over what they produce, how they produce it, and how they are compensated. If workers ran things themselves, so the story goes, jobs would be better and workplaces would be more equal. What do we actually know about work in alternative organizations? Do women fare better? Can they offer alternatives or solutions to the gender inequality that permeates working life? This teaching and learning guide provides supplemental information to facilitate the use of this article in the classroom. This includes a list of recommended readings, online resources, a sample syllabus, focus questions, and project suggestions.

In The Ambivalent State Javier Auyero and Katherine Sobering examine the fascinating world of clandestine relationships between police officers and drug dealers in Argentina. Drawing on a unique combination of ethnographic research and hundreds of pages of wiretapped phone conversations, they analyze the inner-workings of police-criminal collusion and how they shape drug markets, policing in poor urban areas, and daily life at the urban margins.

This article examines the clandestine connections between participants in the illicit drug trade and members of state security forces to understand how they impact everyday understandings of the law. Drawing on a unique combination of long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a poor, high-crime district in Argentina and wiretapped conversations drawn from a court case involving a drug trafficking group active in the same area, we find that traffickers use illicit relationships to maintain economic control of the territory, and that collusion fosters widespread cynicism about law enforcement among residents. This article expands the literature on the covert relationships between drug trade participants and agents of the state by detailing the inner workings of collusion. Furthermore, it analyzes residents' perceptions of police complicity as an underexplored source of legal cynicism. Finally, it offers a methodological blueprint of how to access and analyze data that capture state actions usually hidden from public view.

This article examines the clandestine connections between participants in the illicit drug trade and members of state security forces to understand how they impact everyday understandings of the law. Drawing on a unique combination of long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a poor, high-crime district in Argentina and wiretapped conversations drawn from a court case involving a drug trafficking group active in the same area, we find that traffickers use illicit relationships to maintain economic control of the territory, and that collusion fosters widespread cynicism about law enforcement among residents. This article expands the literature on the covert relationships between drug trade participants and agents of the state by detailing the inner workings of collusion. Furthermore, it analyzes residents' perceptions of police complicity as an underexplored source of legal cynicism. Finally, it offers a methodological blueprint of how to access and analyze data that capture state actions usually hidden from public view. ResumenEste artículo examina las conexiones clandestinas entre participantes en el tráfico de drogas ilegales y miembros de las fuerzas de seguridad del estado a los efectos de entender cómo esas relaciones impactan en la manera en que la ley es entendida en la vida cotidiana. Combinando trabajo etnográfico en un barrio pobre con altos niveles de criminalidad y escuchas telefónicas registradas en un expediente judicial que involucra a un grupo de traficantes de la misma zona, encontramos que: a) los traficantes utilizan esas relaciones clandestinas para mantener control económico del territorio, y b) la colusión entre agentes del estado y traficantes alimenta un cinismo legal generalizado entre los residentes de la zona. Este artículo hace tres contribuciones. En primer lugar, expande la literatura sobre relaciones encubiertas entre participantes en el mercado de drogas ilícitas y los agentes del estado al detallar el funcionamiento de la colusión. En segundo lugar, analiza las percepciones sobre la complicidad policial como una fuente no estudiada de cinismo legal. Por último, ofrece una estrategia metodológica para acceder y analizar datos sobre acciones del estado que suelen estar ocultas.

The protests of December 2001 in Argentina were the most visible manifestation of a larger cycle of contention, which continues to have a substantial influence on the forms, tactics and goals of social movements throughout the country. This paper provides a critical overview of these lasting effects. In particular, we focus on three areas where the consequences of the crisis for collective action have been particularly strong: performative politics, coalition‐building, and institutional support for grassroots networks. We conclude by reflecting on the implications for participatory democracy and the consolidation of a highly engaged civil society.