La Pulpería: An Argentinian Hub

By Raquel Arévalo on behalf of La Pulpería and its parroquianos

Hub name: La Pulpería Laboratorio de Transformación Social

Hub hosts and participants:

• 2020-2022- Marcela Mazzitelli | Raquel Arévalo  
• Participants: 25, 10 regularly u-lab2x core team of 7, extended 27 (outside of the hub)
• 2025 - 2026 Patricia Dellacha | Raquel Arévalo  
• Participants: about 50, rotating in different activities, and ripples.

Year of creation: July 15, 2020. Re-opened 2025.

Intention: Ego to eco awareness/ consciousness  activism; explorations on being human and preservation of humanness in these times of disruption.

This past weekend, while participating in a 20-person minga (a volunteer, informal crew called upon for support among neighbors) to build a natural home for one of our bioconstruction certification classmates, a different glimpse at Theory U´s two ways of learning seemed to be present in that act: More than builders (past), we were bringing a new home to life (future). That movement felt a proxy for what our hub feels like.

What kind of Hub is La Pulpería, how do we define ourselves? How does the emerging manifest in what we do? What is the future we are trying to bring through our activities? 

That has been an inquiry we hold at La Pulpería and the answers are not so clear. As activists, we got to Theory U trying to answer ‘What was needed for people to act when confronted with shocking realities (pesticides, plastics, medicine, extractivism, surveillance capitalism, etc.)?’ 

Pulperías were, and still are, stand-alone building structures in the middle of vast territories, in our case the Argentine pampas, with their own identity and character conforming a network that can cover hectares of land. People could stop at a pulpería for a meal or drink; or to rest, change horses, buy general store items, get and send mail, play cards or guitar. Or just hang out, sometimes peacefully, sometimes not. 

A pulpería would have its regular customers, called “parroquianos” (parishioners), and also people passing by. It was somewhat of a safe place where everyone was welcomed, no questions asked. Captured in an instant, our hub’s name would guide and shape our actions and who we are, more than we imagined. 

The Origins

In 2020, a friend and I invited people to join us for the GAIA Journey (Global Activation of Intention and Action) hosted by Presencing Institute. To our surprise, 30 persons from different parts of the country showed up to inhale and exhale with us. 

At the end of GAIA, creating a hub seemed a natural evolution for all. Our intention was to hold and share what had become our “sacred space” with other people. We imagined our hub as a place of social transformation, offering practises and journeys; sharing what had transformed us so deeply; and hosting members’ projects, creating ecosystem networks. This included an emphasis on food systems and food sovereignty, agroecology and slow living, following a u-lab2x initiative about Transforming the food systems in Argentina, that we had held together with Creando Futuro hub as facilitators.  

We imagined La Pulpería as a Theory U-focused start-up incubator where projects seeded; and ourselves as active members of those projects. People coming and going. Open doors. By then, we had held projects related to emerging needs during lockdown: 

• “Compartiendo alcanza” (There is always enough if you share) originated in support of communal street kitchens that served over 500 people . The name came from one of the women's reply when asked how she managed to feed increasing numbers of people showing up. 
• A  neighborhood group of about 300 we created to offer online gatherings for emotional support and company. It included poetry readings, supporting neighborhood stores by buying meals that we would eat together while online, and later meeting at our local parks. 
• Also, a movement to resignify 2020, with the invitation: How do you want to remember 2020? If each day is unique and irreplaceable, what is something to be grateful for during the 61 days remaining to the end of the year? Each of us stopped daily to acknowledge a moment in the day and shared a photo of it on social media.  
• Our hub also held Scribing sessions in Spanish, organized an SPT practice day, held online practices of 3D mappings and iceberg models, and participated in other hub’s activities. 

But then, something humbling happened. Every single person in the hub moved on to start, launch or focus on what they had explored during GAIA, and La Pulpería’s space was left empty. What might have been considered an utter failure through an ego lens, was a wild success: Our parroquianos flourished in their own territories: 

• Susana published her first book. She gained strength in a Coaching circle.
• Inés, who does social work in popular neighborhoods and is afraid of water, sailed across a river to work with fishermen and their families, and that project is thriving 5 years on. 
• Barbi and her family moved away from the city and built their own home. Today  they teach and live permaculturally. 
• Marcela started and finished Harry Potter readings for children on Instagram at ‘a chapter a night’ pace. 
• Inspired by her, Alejandra started sharing her Gem therapy work with others in social media. 
• Marcela2, who was working with luxury brands communications, redefined her work. 

Seeds disseminated around. La Pulpería had been an enabling place, not a home, for the projects. So we “closed” doors temporarily. The container had been a powerful soil, even if the direction it took was different than expected. 

New Seeds in the Container 

While La Pulpería was not active, the container remained alive. Our seeds popped up in 2025. Many of our members had kept some relation with Theory U through other hubs like Resonantes, Aluna, Daniela Ferraz`s SPT offerings and other individual practices, a u-labbers network, U for U project in universities, reflections on Education for human flourishing from the Global South, and others. Some of us had been involved with practises around Delicate Activism and  Capra’s Systems View of Life, and we decided to host reading groups of Allan Kaplan's “Artistas de lo Invisible” and to join together Fritjof Capra's course, both relating to our inquiry about transformation and systemic views, re-opening La Pulpería as a container.  

The groups were diverse, intertwined through different spaces of biodynamic agriculture, agroecology, farming, slow food movement, constellations, sustainability, activists, conscious companies and entrepreneurship, mindfulness practitioners, popular neighborhood leaders, previous u-labbers, and people we considered might be interested and invited one by one.

That same year, we participated in the Ecosystem Leadership Program for LatAm in México, where the seed for Otto Scharmer’s visit to Argentina in 2026 was planted. Patricia and I fancied offering a weekly Coaching Circle for our own practice, that we started in October, 2025. The Circles have pulpería qualities, as people are welcomed to come and go as they wish, making each circle a stable space with different members each meeting.  After around 30 circles, it has been a journey of discovery that we are exploring as a group to write about and share.

Our hub´s intention evolves as we go—or perhaps it is there but was not laid out explicitly.  Up until Patricia joined, it was very much a space of communal  explorations based on personal interests. Somehow, the container provided cohesion and belonging.

We like to say that we are activists of ego to eco consciousness, bringing in tools and holding spaces to invite systemic reflection about place and impact, the way we each sit in our own world, no matter where the individual awareness processes are. Right now, we are a starting point for that, and a holding safe place to return. We create based on what emerges as an inquiry for us. We feel our contribution is in what we are doing, in the spaces we hold.  Patricia’s vast experience as a trained mindfulness facilitator keeps us grounded and present. We hold quality spaces of consciousness without attachment to them. We learnt that we have to let go, and we do, from beings, practices or people. We are open to reformulation. In the meantime, we feel we are adding value, generating ripples that reach other places. And, while doing this, everyone grows.

Coaching Circles as Entry Points

Coaching Circles proved to be a valuable entry point tool to awareness. What we do is intentional. And, at the same time, the path opens as we go.

For example, one of us started scribing in our circles. One challenge, one drawing. After a few sessions, it became expected. We began sharing drawings in our whatsapp group for those who hadn’t joined. To our surprise, they would resonate as if they had. Interest arose, so we created a space for a scribing exploration. Now, more parroquianos draw in our circles, connecting to the field in a new way, allowing themselves to experience without judgment. Maruchi León, a parroquiana who is an established, formally trained actress in Spain wrote: “The three cases I presented brought to me the emergence of a different, positive future.” One of those resulted in her moving from idea to action and debuting with Segismundo habla, an experimental theatre work for an audience of 7 based on Calderón de la Barca’s La vida es sueño.

We use TU's tools, sometimes in isolation, acknowledging that the U process is a more complex journey to travel. And we are finding that, perhaps, this is the way to go: small and consistent, deep. We do not push, but offer, and in that gentle difference, many parroquianos have decided to join u-lab. So we opened a space to support their journey, lightly but present. We also facilitated 3D mappings sessions for an education NGO and are open to explorations with others, curiosity leading the way to transformation sparks. A new one emerged recently about the challenges of bioconstructor workers, who have minga as an ideal model, but need to make money to live in a capitalist world.

Many of us are concerned with sameness, the loss of human qualities, what makes us unique, wondering how to keep alive the meaning of acts that seem insignificant but are so relevant to preserve our human diversity, to being who we are with our own nuances.  And we are starting conversations about that. Some of us are women in the 50-65 age range, and we are planning to host conversations on awareness and transformation at this powerful stage of life next year.

Our tribe is mainly Argentine but also global. People from Macao, Spain, Ecuador, Colombia, Uruguay, USA come to La Pulpería. They know they are welcome and sometimes find it disruptive that our highest demand is to be on time, the space takes care of the rest. Is that a little or a lot? Coming from a world where escalate, replicate, globalize were my mantras, I feel another formula for change has emerged: it is small, caring and unpretentious compared to my old ways and measures of success. And “los parroquianos” attest its value every time we meet even if for us the path is not that clear.

If there is something I’d emphasize is the experiential, creative and joyful nature of our hub, the iterations without judging. Change generated as a force without a label, the value of the intention to hold the space. The deliberate nature of the field moves as in a dance, and we are sort of gardeners of the field, picking up flowers with others to make the most beautiful bunch together.