Working and Leisure Spaces of Railway Workers in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

This article describes, in an exploratory way, some of the working and leisure spaces of Uruguayan railway workers, focusing on the 1960s and 1970s. These years, marked by crisis and social mobilisation, represent a turning point in the process of deterioration of the railway system. This is reflected in some of the changes experienced by railway workers and their families in the way of inhabiting and signifying spaces that had been cemented since the ‘golden age’ of the railway. The article pursues two main objectives: first, to characterise the different spaces in which the everyday life of railway workers and their families took place, highlighting the particularities of this productive sector in which work on the move and fixed work in the territory coexisted; second, to present preliminary indications of how, in a context of crisis, workers and their families made use of some of these spaces. The text seeks to contribute to the reflection on the role of the spatial dimension in various dynamics that constitute the work of the working class.