From Demands to Prefiguration. History of the Right to the City in Latin America

Abstract

The article sets out to trace a conceptual history of the right to the city in Latin America. Based on a critical reading of Lefebvre’s work, the essay reconstructs the theoretical frameworks that accompany the practical transformations of the right to the city in the region. The paper covers a period that starts with the publication of the book in 1968 and finishes with the decline of “the new left” in Latin America. The essay argues that, over this period, there are three different configurations of the right to the city, in which distinct theoretical displacements accompany the appropriations made by social movements and its inclusion into public policy arenas. During a first instance, associated with social movements, the notion is used to describe forms of collective action associated with housing and spatial injustice. A second configuration is marked by an institutional and bureaucratic appropriation, where Lefebvre’s original conceptual coordinates transfigured. The right to the city is presented as an empty signifier and articulation emerges as a distinct political practice. In a third more recent configuration, social movements and collectives linked to social architecture actualize the notion of the right to the city around issues of construction and prefiguration.