Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Immigration is one of the defining features of our time and calls into question processes of the construction of identity in relation to the experience of belonging and ties to space, territory and social worlds. This paper presents the perspectives of 14 Colombian immigrants regarding their lives in Santiago, analyzing how some features of the space make cultural trends and particular ways of dwelling visible. Santiago plays the role of the main character in their narratives, as it illustrates, reflects and participates in the construction of social issues. The article discusses how moving beyond localisms and incorporating a peripheral perspective can contribute to adding dynamism and depth to the understanding of social cohesion.

Although there has been a number of studies on the first Chilean neighborhood revitalization program known as “Quiero mi Barrio”, their focus has centered on the exploration of impact evaluations, satisfaction surveys, institutional level analysis and citizen participation, amongst others. In other words, these studies regard this program as a rationally based action or technical instrument, an organized set of principles, objectives, concrete measures and coordinated actions. However, there is no research on the conception and formulation of this initiative, which suggests the need to analyze it as a non-rational process of collective action. Based on diverse approaches from the sociology of public action, the genealogical method developed by Foucault, the cognitive and mobility approaches to public policies and the analysis of 26 interviews with key informants and around 100 institutional documents and press releases, this paper examines three program constitutive events –its political process of development, the “social integration” term conceptualizations and the adoption of the neighborhood contract model– which demonstrate that its formulation is not based on rational planning but on a collective-based action process influenced by interests, values and representations where power and the diversity of approaches to an initial idea are fundamental to understand the nature of this initiative.

Socioeconomic residential segregation (SRS) can be considered one of the main obstacles for an adequate urban integration in Latin American cities, since it is related to different social problems and contributes to their intergenerational reproduction. This article carries out an exploratory research on the links between SRS and the incorporation into the workplace of the population in San Carlos de Bariloche city, Argentina. Through a combination of multivariate analysis techniques and data from the last population census (2010), we obtain a typology that classifies the neighborhoods of the city and, then, we analyze the labor integration of the population located there. The results are in line with previous work from Latin America, which shows that those who live in segregated environments tend to have greater difficulties in accessing the workplace and, with it, in achieving social integration and economic progress. On the other hand, part of the evidence not only seems to contradict the traditional thesis of spatial mismatch or neighborhood effect, but also shows some of the limits of public policies used to influence urban integration if they are only limited to give access to housing and basic services.

The promotion of urban integration in sectors characterized by the encroachment of drug trafficking poses particular challenges including avoidance of its expansion and existing segregation. In accordance with hypotheses of social and tactical urbanism and in pursuit of the improvement and revaluation of public space, this paper investigates the synergic relationships between segregation, security, drug trafficking, public space and citizen engagement, based on the characterization and critical analysis of a comprehensive intervention model designed for sectors with these characteristics in the city of Córdoba (Argentina). From this approach, feasible design and management tools to be implemented in neighborhoods with similar situations are presented and offered as a possible intervention model. Its application articulated to integral processes realizes that, in the face of the loss of value of educational and productive spaces, sports and leisure areas are effective ways of advancing in viable processes of integration in our cities. This implies a valorization of cultural variables and the participation of citizens in solving problems, in order to enhance the development of better integrative urban policies.

The present study aimed to characterize the territorial configuration of the habitat in the Alfonso Lopez neighborhood from the social production in space, by describing its dynamics of territorial appropriation and control. The research focused on a mixed approach with a sequential explanatory design, in which urban planning and citizen perception on the image of the neighborhood was used. It could be said that the Alfonso Lopez neighborhood is an informal settlement characterized by urban deficit and socio-urban isolation. In its territorial habitat configuration processes, there is an incomplete coverage of basic public services, deficit of urban equipment, a perception of insecurity, conditions of environmental vulnerability and semi-consolidated urban planning. It is concluded that this settlement is a human mixture, a scenario in which the acts of inhabiting build their territory with the intention of integrating and interrelated with the surrounding sectors and to blur the phenomenon of social segregation and habitat fragmentation; For this reason, territorial control is given by the processes of local organization and leadership as a strategy to achieve urban conditions of habitability.

One of the main challenges for social integration in Latin American cities is the presence of informal settlements, where a significant percentage of the poorest urban population live. Although in Chile urban informality is less frequent than in other countries of the region, the recent growth of informal settlements bestows greater relevance to the problem. This article studies the effects on social integration and exclusion of policies aimed at informal settlements in Chile, specifically through the execution of the Programa de Campamentos or ‘informal settlements’ program’ between 2011 and 2018. Analysis considers quantitative data from Informal Settlements’ Surveys, and the study of four cases in different regions in the country focusing on strategies aimed at informal settlement closure strategies through a qualitative analysis of interviews, focus groups and walking tours. The results reveal the importance of dimensions such as affect and attachment, sense of belonging and participation in the generation of social integration, thus allowing for the discussion of perspectives on integration that are based exclusively on spatial proximity.

This work explores the extent to which urban integration is related to a better quality of life in the metropolitan areas of Santiago, Valparaíso and Concepción. This challenge has not been addressed so far as a result of its methodological and interpretation complexities. Through the comparative analysis of the Urban Life Quality Index (ICVU) and Urban Integration indices raised from the System of Urban Development Indicators and Standards (SIEDU), three key dimensions are addressed: sociocultural conditions, connectivity and mobility, and housing and environment. The results confirm in the case of the three metropolitan areas of Chile that urban integration is not necessarily expressed as the result of a better quality of life, opening an important question about the scope that a good endowment of public and private goods and services may have in order to guarantee a greater degree of integration in neighborhoods and municipalities, at least at the metropolitan level. Additionally, the importance of the geography of the metropolitan areas is revealed, due to some conflicting results obtained, generating a significant contribution for the design of public policies before their next examination in Chile.

The historic areas of Latin American cities have seen a process of urban transformation. In the case of Valparaíso selective urban renovation in urban heritage areas such as the Concepción and Alegre hills driven by the tourist and real estate industries and promoted by the state through programmes and subsidies. From such interventions, large homes changed from residential to tourist use, becoming hotels, restaurants, handicraft stores, gradually transforming residential neighborhoods into enclaves for tourism. This paper seeks to understand how inhabitants have experienced these changes and what it means for them. Through sixty interviews with residents of the Concepción and Alegre hills, the impact of tourism and real estate transformations on the quality of life of inhabitants is analyzed. The results show an urban and social reconversion that has valorized their homes and improved equipment and urban services in these sectors, while discontent over the loss of neighborhood life and forms of vulnerability of historical residents with economic difficulties to conserve and maintain their homes

The financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, and the national policies of commodification and financialization of housing, have made millions of households homeless around the world. This paper analyses the process that has taken place in Spain over the last decade (2009-2019) in a ‘struggle’ to enact the right to housing – a process that has gone from ‘taking the street’ to ‘taking the institutions’. This is analyzed through the lens of Giddens’s theory of structuration, with the aim of assessing the capacity of these processes to transform relationships with authority, the allocation of resources, and systems of meaning. Analysis of PAH and Podemos shows how they have changed the collective imagination and proposed alternatives at a political level, but also the limits in achieving a transformation of housing policy. The case of Spain shows that ‘common people’ can acquire political agency and challenge the capitalist discourse that property rights should be prioritized over the common good, and specifically over the right to housing. This analysis offers lessons that could help understand similar contexts of economic crisis, political delegitimization and breach of the right to housing, such as Greece and Ireland.

Este trabajo muestra las contradicciones y fracasos de las políticas públicas de prevención social de la violen- cia y la delincuencia y del delito. Esto es consecuencia de los excesos e ineficacia en el uso de las tecnologías de la información y comunicación, la impunidad y la iner- cia del ciudadano que no se percibe parte del fenómeno social de la inseguridad en México. El problema tiene ori- gen en la incorporación acrítica del término seguridad ciudadana a la política pública. El diseño metodológico corresponde al paradigma crítico, mediante una inves- tigación-acción emancipadora-transformadora y a un enfoque metodológico mixto que dará soporte a la ar- gumentación para eliminar los cuestionamientos o atri- buciones de subjetividad que se confieren a las investi- gaciones sociales. La aportación de la investigación al conocimiento existente permite develar la mimetización de lo que hasta ahora se ha entendido como seguridad ciudadana en México y las falsas promesas del trinomio seguridad, tic y derechos humanos.