Abstract
This chapter analyzes the history of the informal city in Montevideo from a social movement perspective. It argues that, like other more structured social movements in the region, squatters were affected by neoliberal reforms and democratization in the past decades of the twentieth century. It focuses particularly on the role of two political opportunities stemming from democratization, namely electoral competition and decentralization. While the first one gave squatters influential allies, the second one opened institutional access for them. Yet, not all squatters were equally endowed to seize those opportunities. Those with more political networks, organizational experience, and better socioeconomic conditions were better able to use those opportunities to seize land, plan their neighborhoods, and get goods and services for them. Based on quantitative and qualitative data on land seizures and neighborhood histories, respectively, the article argues for an interactive theory of mobilization that considers both hardships and political factors to understand squatting.
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Notes
- 1.
For more on Uruguayan social movements, see for instance: Bucheli et al. (2005) on the mobilization for human rights against the crimes committed by the military dictatorship; Midaglia (1992) also on the early stages of the human rights movement and on the cooperative housing movement; Mirza (2006) on the cooperative housing movement and the union movement in comparative perspective; all the articles in Filgueira (1985) on gender, student, union, neighborhood, and rural movements during the democratic transition; Moreira (2011) for an updated perspective on the recent relationship of social movements with the leftist government.
- 2.
Interestingly, in the 1980s and early 1990s when many countries in the region were undergoing re-democratization processes there was a wave of squatter studies that interpreted them from a New Social Movements’ theory lenses. These studies focused on identities and autonomous capacities (from state and politics) of squatters and a myriad of other emergent social movements as well as on their grassroots horizontal ways of organizing (Caldeira 1990; Escobar and Alvarez 1992; Evers 1985; Holston 1991; Oxhorn 1995; Touraine 1987). These studies have received recent criticisms for overstating the autonomy of social movements in the light of the recovered centrality of formal politics once democratization processes consolidated (Davis 1999; Roberts 1997).
- 3.
These early invasions were dubbed cantegriles, as an irony. In Punta del Este, the wealthiest seaside resort of the Uruguayan Atlantic coast and a point of reference for the regional elite and jet set, there is a very exclusive club named Cantegril Country Club, built in 1947. It is unknown who started using that name, but some see it as a sign of popular resistance and imagination (Bon Espasandín 1963).
- 4.
Yet, although some did come from rural areas, most of them came from cities or towns from the “interior” of the country, that is from places outside the capital (Baudrón 1979).
- 5.
The wave of planned land invasions that started with the peak of 1989–1990 encountered legislation that made it difficult for land owners to evict squatters as well as a weak policing of vacant land. This slowly changed first in practice and more recently formally. First, squatters could argue the “state of necessity,” a legal figure in the Uruguay Criminal Code that can exempt responsibility for the commission of crimes. Immediate police eviction could happen only during the first 48 h of occupation and this was why many planned invasions occurred on Fridays or before a holiday. Besides, the Uruguayan Civil Code states that after a year of peacefully occupying property you have possession rights. A 2007 reform to the Criminal Code harshened legal conditions for squatters. A new law not only makes it easier to denounce cases of property usurpation but also broadens what is considered usurpation. While before only a judge could denounce usurpation in the first 48 h of its happening, now any witness can, anytime. Besides, while before only clandestine or violent invasions were considered usurpation cases, now any invasion of property, even if it occurs during the day and without any use of force, is considered usurpation of someone else’s property and therefore a crime. This new law, originally intended for invasions of houses in the prestigious Punta del Este seaside resort, has in practice also affected land invasions. Costs of invading have risen.
- 6.
57 % of the land invasions I could find information about were accretion ones, 33 % had been planned and 11 % had started as fraudulent land subdivision and sale.
- 7.
- 8.
More recently, in 2009, and following a national legislation, the decentralization structure got more complex. Besides the CCZs, eight municipalities were created, each with elected local authorities including a local mayor. It remains to be seen how this process is altering local and particularly squatters’ politics.
- 9.
The impact of decentralization on democratizing neighborhood associations was by no means limited to squatter settlements. In her census of Montevideo’s neighborhood associations a year after decentralization had been implemented, González finds that, in comparison to her previous census during the Colorado city administration right after democratization (Gonzalez 1989), “there were higher percentages of associations that held regular meetings, that elected their leaders, that held meetings in public places, that applied for legal status, and that had regular contact with other organizations in their area” (Goldfrank 2002, pp. 71–72).
- 10.
For example: Comisión de Tierras in the CCZ 17, Coordinadora de Asentamientos in the CCZ 9, Coordinadora de Asentamientos CCZ 12. I interviewed members of these three umbrella organizations of squatters. None of them was actively meeting at the moment of my fieldwork. All interviewees explained how hard it is to coordinate actions. In general coordinating efforts have been organized from above, from the municipal government. To be fair, however, in the case of the CCZ 17 (Cerro neighborhood), the committee preceded decentralization.
- 11.
Interview with Delia Rodriguez, city councilor from the Socialist Party from 2000 to 2005 and later vice-director of the Program for the Integration of Squatter Settlements (PIAI).
- 12.
Poverty reached 40.9 % of the Uruguayan households, almost doubling the percentages for the 1990s decade (Arim and Vigorito 2007).
- 13.
According to anecdotal evidence, squatter settlements did grow in the metropolitan area around the crisis years (along the northern Costa de Oro, for example). Yet, there is no information available about dates of settlement of those neighborhoods. Regarding Montevideo city only, according to a study conducted by the National Institute of Statistics, there were already 120,000 people living in squatter settlements in 1998 (INE 1998). That number had only risen to 133,546 in 2004 (according to the National Institute of Statistics’ 2004 population count), and to 144,707 in 2006 (INE-PIAI 2006). Although these estimations are not strictly comparable, the number of people living in squatter settlements seems to be going down since then. According to a 2008 estimation the number was 130,000 (Menéndez 2008) and the most recent one states 112,101 people are living in squatter settlements (PMB-PIAI 2013). This last estimation also reports a diminishing number of squatter neighborhoods because of the upgrading and regularization program together with no new land invasions.
- 14.
The case of the El Cambio land invasion illustrates this. This invasion occurred in October 2004, right before the election that put the leftist coalition in the national government for the first time in Uruguayan history. In fact, the invasion was named after the Frente Amplio’s campaign that year: El Cambio (The Change). Located in one of the areas of the city with the largest number of land invasions, El Cerro, with a tradition of working class organization and with a permissive local government, El Cambio was not evicted immediately. Yet contrary to what happened to most land invasions in this area, after a period of hesitation and after a change in local authorities, the local council this time decided to oppose this invasion. Moreover, it wrote a formal declaration opposing any new land invasion in the area.
- 15.
El Observador, “La ocupación no es el mecanismo para exigir vivienda.” January 19th, 2011.
- 16.
The PIAI, financed both by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Uruguayan government, is similar to other programs in the region such as the famous Favela-Bairro in Brazilian cities. While present in Uruguay since 1998 it has been particularly active in Montevideo since the Frente Amplio has the national government. Before, given that the national and municipal governments belonged to opposing parties, the program was stagnant in the city and more active in other parts of the country.
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Álvarez-Rivadulla, M. (2015). Squatters and Politics in Montevideo at the Turn of the Century. In: Almeida, P., Cordero Ulate, A. (eds) Handbook of Social Movements across Latin America. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9912-6_15
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