ERIGAL is pleased to invite you to the first event of the Winter 2026 semester in the framework of the series “ERIGAL Fridays”, titled “Our visiting students share their work.”
This event includes two presentations by two PhD candidates who are completing research stays in Quebec: Laura Bonafé at UQO and Rodrigo Manrique at Université Laval.
📅 Friday, January 16, 2026
🕝 2 pm – 4 pm
📍 UdeM Room B-3202 3200, rue Jean-Brillant
Presentation by Laura Bonafé
The construction of community political leadership by community workers in the popular neighbourhoods of Córdoba (2003–2023)
This study aims to analyse the factors that shape different types of community political leadership exercised by women in urban popular neighbourhoods.
For decades, women from popular sectors have ensured social reproduction in their neighbourhoods through community work. Along the way, some gain recognition and legitimacy as community referents, becoming key figures for their political and social articulation with the state.
By developing what we call community political leadership, these women interpret collective demands, weave networks and build strategic relationships with political, social and governmental institutions to guarantee rights in their communities.
However, there is significant heterogeneity in how these leadership roles are exercised and in the political strategies they employ: some aim to influence public agendas to achieve structural solutions, while others focus on addressing immediate needs without long-term perspectives.
Based on a case study in Córdoba (2003–2023) using a qualitative methodology with in-depth interviews, our hypothesis is that this diversity of community political leadership is explained by the combination of three interrelated factors shaping the political trajectories of these local leaders:
- individual factors linked to their political-biographical itineraries (life, family and work experiences);
- collective factors related to participatory experiences in political and social organisations and community networks;
- institutional factors referring to modes of interaction with the state and to political opportunity structures framing leadership practices.
About the speaker:
Laura holds a BA in History from the National University of Córdoba (UNC) and a Diploma in Feminist and Popular Economy from CLACSO. She is currently a PhD candidate in Political Science at the National University of San Martín, funded by a CONICET doctoral fellowship. She is a teaching assistant in Introduction to Social Sciences and an adjunct instructor in Gender Perspectives in Economic Sciences at UNC’s Faculty of Economic Sciences.
Presentartion by Rodrigo Manrique
This talk presents reflections from an empirical study analysing security communication on social media during the first one hundred days of the La Libertad Avanza government in Argentina.
We built a corpus composed of all posts published by the digital accounts of Patricia Bullrich and the National Ministry of Security on X, Instagram and TikTok between December 10, 2023 and March 19, 2024.
Using a qualitative content analysis approach complemented by quantitative tools, we examine themes, actors, settings, audiovisual resources and the main interactions of digital audiences.
We identify the construction of a dynamic and interactive audiovisual narrative intertwining information and entertainment, playfulness and seriousness, combining classic features of crime news with social media formats.
In this digital proposal, “security” — and especially “social order” — is framed as a good to be protected by federal forces, whose figure is revalorised by a segment of digital audiences.
The ministry’s accounts become a stage for “police in action” who, through numerous “operations” (seizures, arrests, raids, searches, including the “anti-blockade protocol”), enact the guiding slogan of the ministry’s narrative: “El que las hace, las paga.”
This phrase synthesises a model based on the stigmatization and criminalization of a broad set of enemies in defence of the “good Argentines.”
A “we” is constructed in opposition to those identified as objects of hate, subjects to be punished for threatening the “order” that has supposedly returned with the new administration.
This narrative expands the category of “offenders” associated with insecurity (criminals, motorcycle thieves, drug gangs, etc.) to include unions, social organisations, Indigenous peoples, migrants, and retirees — a growing list of very diverse actors sharing a common element: their allegedly undesirable, chaotic presence in public space.
In contrast, the so-called “good people” form an ordering category grouping certain individuals as victims of crime or as “ordinary citizens” who work, follow the rules, and demand police repression to maintain “order in the streets,” especially near national political decision-making centres.
About the speaker :
Rodrigo holds a BA in Communication Sciences, an MA in Social Sciences Research, and is a PhD candidate in Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires. He is currently a doctoral fellow at CONICET and teaches Anthropology and Communication (FSOC-UBA).
He is a member of the research group Communication, Culture and Violence at the Gino Germani Institute.
He is also part of the international project Informational Practices of Local Audiences: A Comparison between Argentina, Brazil, Canada and France, through which he is conducting a research stay at Université Laval, after receiving an ELAP fellowship.