We are pleased to announce the publication of a new open-access article in the journal Societies titled "Working to Do and Working to Be: Adolescent Girls' Labor and Identity in a Rural Migrant Community in Bolivia," co-authored by Camila Jimenez-Sanchez, Gerrit Loots, and Tuba Bircan.
Drawing on the initial phase of a longitudinal Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) project (2023–2024), the study explores the lived experiences of adolescent girls in a rural Quechua community in Cochabamba. By integrating Silvia Federici's theory of social reproduction with Axel Honneth's recognition theory, the authors conceptualize a "laboring subjectivity" defined by a ch'ixi (mottled) reality. The findings reveal a dynamic interaction between two dimensions of labor: "Working to Do" (invisible, naturalized reproductive, agricultural, and affective household work) and "Working to Be" (the subjective labor girls perform to negotiate recognition and autonomy, often through circular seasonal migration to regions like El Trópico). By centering adolescent girls as active laboring subjects, this research challenges Western developmental biases in youth studies and offers a nuanced reframing of the nexus between labor, mobility, and identity formation in the Global South.
Read the full open-access article here: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/16/7/210
Citation: Jimenez-Sanchez, C., Loots, G., & Bircan, T. (2026). Working to Do and Working to Be: Adolescent Girls’ Labor and Identity in a Rural Migrant Community in Bolivia. Societies, 16(7), 210. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc16070210
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