Informal housing as a strategy of everyday resistance

The case of the population of Las Canteras, commune of Huechuraba

Abstract

This article is the first approach of an investigation that seeks to understand the discordance between the design of common spaces of social condominiums and the ways their inhabitants living them. The approach is characterized by two conceptual shifts: firstly, a transit from the isolated consideration of the dwelling to a directed attention of the common spaces and, secondly, from the expert point of view to the consideration of the experience of the inhabitants. Recognizing that housing transformations have been extensively studied, it is intended to generate knowledge regarding the way in which the inhabitants react to anomalies in common spaces, driven socio-spatially stabilizations given by “informal” interventions. Some of these adaptive strategies and the case of a land grab are shown, showing how these strategies are deployed, what resources are mobilized, their repercussions in space and in the patterns of community organization additionally to the possibilities of learning for public policy.