Appropriation and social division of land

Abstract

Generally in Latin America and particularly in Argentina, the legal dimension of urban processes has deserved little attention and has been approached according to the norms and not as a social practice. We propose a turning point to this issue responding to two questions: What is the relationship between social class, family, demographic behaviour, and, land appropriation strategies?; secondly, what is the boundary between the legality of the ownership of land as an exchange good and the legitimacy of its appropriation as a good of use? As regards the first question, our hypothesis puts forward that the attainment of the acquisition - material and symbolic - of the juridical capital conditions and redefines all the strategies of social reproduction, making evident relationships of power, of dominance-dependence inter and intra social positions. Regarding our second question, our hypothesis shows a contradiction between a social right and a real right, that goes through up to the heart of state policies. Hence, the concept of trajectory - taken as the interrelationship of different behavioural dimensions of reproduction strategies, and this at different moments of homes vital cycles -allows us to study the evolution of the volume and the structure of social agents’ capital ;in the economy of practices, i.e. not of what they lack but of how to improve their reproduction tools in order to enter and belong to the urban field