Reductionist discourses on urban social struggles under capitalism

Abstract

This article examines social struggles for access to land, housing, and the city within capitalist urbanization contexts, focusing on the case study of the collective occupation of the Federal Housing Plan in the neighborhood of La Movediza (Tandil, Argentina, 2009–2011). The primary objective is to analyze organizational strategies and state discourses, deepening the reflection on the construction of frameworks that criminalized these practices.

The research adopts a qualitative and critical approach, drawing on analytical categories from historical materialism and radical geography. It employs techniques such as oral history interviews and documentary analysis of journalistic sources to reconstruct the studied struggle.

The findings reveal how organizational and resistance strategies enabled participants to resist evictions and negotiate with the state. Simultaneously, hegemonic discourse constructed a common sense that naturalized private property as the only legitimate means of accessing the city. This narrative contributed to the stigmatization of land and housing occupations, associating them with illegality and delegitimizing practices of social production of popular habitat—thus reinforcing urban exclusion and class inequalities. The study highlights mechanisms of socio-spatial exclusion in intermediate cities and urban resistance, contributing to debates on inequality, hegemony, and the social production of popular habitat.