Precarious city home-making and eviction in Buenos Aires, Argentina

• Published in: Cultural geographies Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 411 - 424
• Main Author: Muñoz, Solange
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE 01.07.2018; SAGE Publications; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Activities of daily living; Caretakers; Cultural factors; Ethnography; Everyday life; Evictions; Gender; Hotels; Hotels & motels; Households; Insecure; Joint use; Migrants; Mothers; Negotiation; Research design; Social mobility; Space; special issue article; Squatters; Traditional roles; Women; Buenos Aires Argentina; Argentina; gender; home-making; precarity; ethnography; urban geography
• ISSN: 1474-4740; 1477-0881
• DOI: 10.1177/1474474017719068

This article expands on current conceptualizations and applications of precarity by exploring the everyday socio-spatial complexities of migrant squatters living in informal hotels in the center of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Through ethnographic methods, this research investigates squatters’ practices of negotiating access to shared domestic spaces and resources, while experiencing long-term waiting for eviction from their home and potentially from the city center. Employing a cultural geographies approach, this work is concerned with understanding the ways in which precarity is routinely experienced in the micro-spaces of everyday life. Precarity is examined in its temporal and spatial manifestations, with particular emphasis on gendered experiences and homemaking practices. Moving through daily spaces and routine situations, I document how precarity is embedded in the mundane tasks of the domestic, and as a result, unevenly impacts women whose traditional roles as mothers and caretakers mean that they are often at the fore of place-making practices and responsibilities.