Micro-resistances of everyday life. The Fractures of neoliberal urban policies in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires

Abstract

The recent neoliberal urban policies and the containment of the excluded in Latin America create a paradox. This is apparent at Costanera Sur in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, a long walkway. On one side is the Buenos Aires Ecological Reserve on the shore of the Rio de la Plata, which adjoins Rodrigo Bueno, a slum which seems to be in danger because of political pressure from the city government and real estate developers. On the other side is Puerto Madero, the most expensive neighbourhood in the city, with skyscrapers, up-to-date security systems, exclusive shops, luxury hotels, international banking, opulent houses and so on. This promenade, which separates two adjoining areas which exemplify a fragmented city, is radically transformed every weekend. On those days, the Costanera is filled with activities (parrillitas al paso or street barbecues, informal markets, music and dance) that attract the working classes from throughout the city. In this chapter we contrast this with the interesting symbolic construction of the ‘right bourgeois use’ of the public space by the upper class, and its recounting of the legitimate subject, or the civilizing process. This confronts the
everyday life practices of the working classes and ends up slowing down the production of hegemonic urban subjectivity. In this regard, we examine the popular informal activities as counter-hegemonic practices, constituting new actors that develop and produce alternative geographies of the citizenship.