Shantytowns and Urban Commons in Buenos Aires (1943-1972)

ADRIANA LAURA MASSIDDA

Amsterdam

Conferencia; Lecture and Masterclass at the Centro de Estudios y Documentación Latinoamericanos; 2018

Centro de Estudios y Documentación Latinoamericanos, Universidad de Amsterdam

Throughout history urban commons have been crucial for the construction of collective identity in cities. Moreover, they have acted as sites of negotiation between different social classes, and between the public and those holding political power. This becomes particularly evident in shantytowns, where the need to work communally for improvements overlaps with threats of eviction, meaning that the commons are not only a key object of dispute but more importantly a catalyst for joint action. This talk will explore the historical significance of a series of commons in mid-twentieth-century Buenos Aires shantytowns in order to shed light on their relation to urban politics. On the one hand, residents were effectively organised to negotiate with governments in order to obtain improvements and to resist eviction attempts. On the other hand, however, these political endeavours had stemmed from a vast number of everyday practices which were materially related to common infrastructure and public space. Informal football pitches, for example, constituted the main communal place of each shantytown, and were key to residents? sense of belonging, to the use of leisure time (especially for male kids), and to networking (both intra- and inter-shantytowns). Public taps, around which queues were formed as early as four or five in the morning, were a key meeting space as well (especially for women, who were and continue to be in charge of the home). Furthermore, the need to expand piped water and sewerage networks collectively led to the formation of stable shantytown committees. Important achievements were obtained in this way, and it was indeed no coincidence that commons were the first urban feature to be attacked by the shantytown eradication programme implemented by the last dictatorship. Thus, adopting a broad understand of the urban commons, I will argue that they constituted a key material platform for both everyday life and grassroots organisation in mid-twentieth century Buenos Aires shantytowns.