Squatter Life: Persistence at the Urban Margins of Buenos Aires

In Squatter Life, sociologist Javier Auyero and anthropologist SofÍa ServiÁn detail the diverse and often precarious strategies that Argentina’s urban poor rely on to survive. Blending three years of ethnographic fieldwork and anthropological theory with personal narratives of ServiÁn’s experience growing up and living in a squatter settlement, the authors examine how Argentina’s squatter communities contend with violence and secure necessities like food, land, and housing despite inadequate state support and protection. Auyero and ServiÁn recount the bricolage of tactics these individuals employ to make ends meet, such as relying on highly exploitative jobs, patronage, and networks of reciprocal exchange that can involve illicit activities. Analyzing how these survival strategies intersect with class, gender, and political domination, the authors present a nuanced account of marginality in Argentinian squatter settlements while maintaining a deeply human portrait of survival and persistence.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Explicating Subsistence at the Margins 2. Collective Action and Party Politics in the Makings of a Squatter Settlement 3. Persistence Strategies 4. Brokers and Their Followers 5. Lives at Risk: How Do Residents Experience, Explain, and Deal with Interpersonal Violence 6. Victims and Perpetrators 7. The State of Violence, the Violence of the State 8. Women at Work: The Social Life of a Community Center 9. How Does Marginality Feel? Conclusions Notes Bibliography Index  

About the Author :
Javier Auyero is Lozano Long Professor in Latin American Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and Ikerbasque Research Professor at the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao. He is the author of Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina, Contentious Lives: Two Argentine Women, Two Protests, and the Quest for Recognition, and Poor People’s Politics: Peronist Survival Networks and the Legacy of Evita, all also published by Duke University Press. SofÍa ServiÁn is a BA (Licenciatura) student of anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires.

Review :
“Through rich ethnographic work in which they peel off the layers of everyday encounters, Javier Auyero and SofÍa ServiÁn reveal the multiple, ambivalent, and complex informal ties that undergird life at the urban margins. Squatter Life will appeal to all those interested in the everyday life of the poor in Latin America and larger questions about the intersection of poverty, violence, and social relations in urban geographies across time and space.” - Cecilia Menjívar, author of (Enduring Violence: Ladina Women's Lives in Guatemala) “I devoured this book. As Javier Auyero and SofÍa ServiÁn show, the daily struggle for land, shelter, food, and a minimum of physical security is always political: It entails engagement with the state and politicians and requires multiple forms of collective action. Because such engagement is informal and even illicit, political scientists like me often ignore it. But anyone seeking to understand poor people’s politics in Latin America must grapple with it. All those interested in contemporary Latin America should read this beautifully written book.” - Steven Levitsky, coauthor of (How Democracies Die)