Culture as care: Argentina’s cultural policy response to Covid-19

This article analyses cultural policy responses to Covid-19 in Argentina with a focus on the matter of care. It asks: What actions is the government taking in order to care for cultural organisations, cultural workers and the communities they serve? What local understandings of culture underpin such policy decisions? And finally, what have been the results and responses to such policies so far? In order to answer these questions we focus mainly on a central programme of the National Ministry of Culture, Puntos de Cultura [Points of Culture], which provides support to community cultural projects. As a notable, institutionalised example of the Latin American tradition of community arts, a focus on Puntos de Cultura provides an entry point to Latin American perspectives on the social and caring role of culture, thus allowing a contextualised analysis of culture and care at a time of crisis.