Abstract

The feminization of poverty has been, and still is, a problem in North America. Canadian public policies have a negative affect on women, especially those who are mothers, single or elderly. Large urban centres such as Montréal, Québec have a large proportion of women living on low incomes or on social assistance. Through participant observation at Food Central, a community organization, I interacted with these women and the women activists who work with them to assist in easing the difficulties women experience in providing for their families and themselves when household income is insufficient to cover monthly bills. My fieldwork was conducted from August 2008-March 2009, some of the most expensive months of the year for many women.

Québec’s history of social upheavals since the 1960s and its economic instability has created a situation that closely parallels Latin American countries. Both Québec and Latin American countries have increasingly large and popular activist organizations seeking social justice. Many of the grassroots Latin American activist organizations are creating alternatives to the globalized capitalist economy such as “economía solidaria” which is based on an ethics of care, reciprocity, and non-monetary forms of exchanges. This thesis presents the narratives and life stories of the women activists, volunteers and women who came to Food Central as clients to learn what alternatives to the formal economy if any, the women use as strategies of survival in a large city.