The struggle to belong: dealing with diversity in 21st. century urban settings

DI VIRGILIO, MARIA MERCEDES; ARQUEROS MEJICA, MARIA SOLEDAD; GUEVARA, TOMÁS

Amsterdam

Congreso; Annual RC21 Conference 2011; 2011

Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research ? Urban Studies University of Amsterdam

The Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA) has a long history in urbanisation; part of it is conformed by the settlements and neighbourhoods that emerged informally and that, along time, began to consolidate and integrate into the urban fabric. Although its integration acknowledges different forms and cleavages, it is impossible to avoid the fact that the old informal peripheral urbanisations are, nowadays, popular urbanisations integrated to the metropolis. Nevertheless, and in spite of their presence in the city for the past 30 years, and in some cases, even more than 50,1 little is known about the way in which the processes of popular habitat production that contributed to the consolidation of those neighbourhoods evolved. Within this framework, this paper explores these processes in order to account for their course and for the way in which the traits of their evolution are related to their integration (in different degrees and forms) into the urban fabric. In this sense, this paper tries to articulate two levels of analysis: on one hand, the neighbourhood level that takes into account the urbanisation processes and the integration and consolidation of popular neighbourhoods into the urban fabric and, on the other hand, the family level that takes into account the families? course of action and the development of the habitat production processes they develop.