A look inside the struggle for housing in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Abstract

ABSTRACTSet in the broader context of increasing urban precarity and displacement of the urban poor and working classes, this paper examines the social and collective significance of housing precarity and eviction as it is experienced by Latin American, immigrant families living in informal hotels in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I analyze the internal dynamics, interactions and relationships between residents of informal hotels, the housing organization CIBA (Coordinadora de Inquilinos de Buenos Aires), which fights for housing rights for the poor in the city, and the city government sponsored housing subsidy. I argue that urban precarity severely limits opportunities for collective organization around better housing and political and social change. I show that despite CIBA’s objectives to transform social and political conditions for the poor in Buenos Aires, residents often operate under other assumptions and goals, in part because of the temporal and spatial restraints under which they live. Instead, residents of informal hotels work with CIBA in order to secure access to basic, urgent needs. These different expectations and understandings produce contentious relationships of dependence and subordination that are exacerbated by the eviction process and the city government housing subsidy.