Reocupar, reconstruir, “refundar”: el repoblamiento de las villas del sur de Buenos Aires (1981-1985) [Reoccupying, rebuilding, "re-founding": the repopulation of the villas of south Buenos Aires (1981-1985)

This article reconstructs the process of repopulation of the villas of South Buenos Aires which took place after the eradications carried out by the last dictatorship. It works alongside three axes: reoccupy, rebuild, “re-found”, which I consider key aspects of the more general process of repopulation. The period of analysis regards the early 1980s, which involved a transition from dictatorship to democracy, when a few residents previously evicted started to return to some sites. This process was gradual and grew in scale throughout that decade. I focus on Villa 20 and Villa Cildáñez, although I extend my observations to other areas of the capital, working with the voices of those who lived there. I read the repopulation as the attempt, by villa families, to recalibrate the machinery of control and displacement established by the dictatorship in line with a spatially exclusive policy; as an implicit and unintentional way of making decisions regarding the distribution of people in the territory. To make it effective, residents continued and deepened practices stemming from the resistance to eradication emerged during the dictatorship. This process was, of course, not free of tensions, and it is precisely the purpose of this article to explore them.