Within, against and beyond ‘ruins’ in Buenos Aires: urban resistance, privatization and occupation Vicky Habermehl University of Leeds-UK Contested cities research Network http://www.contested-cities.net/ UBA- Buenos Aires
Theoretical impetus • ‘Forgotten places are not outside history. Rather, they are places that have experienced the abandonment characteristic of contemporary capitalist and neoliberal state reorganization. Given the enormous disorder that “organized abandonment” (Harvey 1989, 303) both creates and exploits, how can people who inhabit forgotten places scale up their activism from intensely localized struggles to something less atomized and therefore possessed of a significant capacity for self-determination?’ (Gilmore, 2008:33)
The city is the site of accumulation for this • quintessentially urban crisis- David Harvey Financial crisis in Buenos Aires was • experienced by many as a crisis in their own social reproduction, this made collective organising a necessity in order to meet their needs (Sitrin, 2012). ‘Ruins’ are a way of foregrounding spatial • and social contestation in the city, to understand how spaces are ‘produced’ through organized abandonment as well as how these are key sites of resistance By using John Holloway’s ‘within against and • beyond’ I am engaging with living in contradiction in the city
Sala Alberdi occupation and eviction
Signs of Struggle and protest in the city
Puerto Madero Gentrification and regeneration of the waterfront
Gentrification of barrios San Telmo and Palermo- resistances Resistances : occupied empty homes, and come together to provide and build housing for each other, for example through the MOI (Movimiento de Ocupantes E Inquilinos Palermo San Telmo
Chacarita Barrio El Galpon Market/ cultural center/ villa
Privatization of green/ public space in the city - Parque centenario
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