NEIGHBORHOOD IDENTITY IN QUITO’S IRREGULAR SETTLEMENTS

Abstract

Since the seventies, several settlements in the periurban of Quito have been characterized by persistent legal instability and a lack of municipal infrastructure services; however, motivated by the social cohesion of the people and the selfmanagement of their space, they have decided to undertake regularization processes with the municipality. This article addresses the socio-spatial factors that would support the construction of identity, specifically in two irregular settlements: "Luz y Vida" and "Virgen de la Nube" and, in this regard, raises the possible repercussions that the legitimization of territory would have on neighborhood identity. The results of the research show that the social capital forged over time, highlighting the origin of the inhabitants and their socio-organizational efforts, would be structuring a dynamic identity, endowed with its own logic and rooted more in the construction of the sense of inhabiting than in the administrative processes of regularization.