Urban Precarity and Home: There Is No “Right to the City”

Abstract

Employing qualitative and ethnographic data from field research in 2009 and 2017 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, this article seeks to position urban housing and the home at the center of discussions about social and spatial justice and the right to the city. A focus on housing and home is largely absent in the literature on the right to the city. This article contributes to the literature on the right to the city through an analysis of the struggle for the right to housing and to the city by social organizations and residents who live in informal housing in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I argue that precarious housing—through the threat of eviction and lack of affordable options—affects poor urban residents' right to housing and right to the city and hinders the struggle for social justice. In this study, home is theorized as a central space from which urban dwellers are able to create stable spaces, access urban resources, and contribute to the social fabric and development of the city. As such, precarious housing is understood not simply as experienced at the scale of the home but rather as a primary space from which the right to the city is endeavored, challenged, and denied. I examine how urban injustice and precarity are routinely produced and experienced and argue that without access to stable housing and social change, there is no right to the city.