CONTENTIOUS URBANIZATION FROM BELOW: LAND SQUATTING IN MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY by María José Álvarez-Rivadulla BA in Social Work, Universidad de la República, Uruguay, 2000 MA in Sociology, University of Pittsburgh, 2004 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2009 i UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENT This dissertation was presented by María José Álvarez-Rivadulla It was defended on April 21, 2009 and approved by Kathleen Blee, Distinguished Professor, Sociology Department, U. of Pittsburgh Patrick Doreian, Professor Emeritus, Sociology Department, U. of Pittsburgh Javier Auyero, Lozano Long Professor of Latin American Sociology, Sociology Department, U. of Texas, Austin Dissertation Advisor: John Markoff, University Professor, Sociology Department, U. of Pittsburgh ii Copyright © by María José Álvarez-Rivadulla 2009 iii CONTENTIOUS URBANIZATION FROM BELOW: LAND SQUATTING IN MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY María José Álvarez-Rivadulla, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2009 What explains the evolution and dynamics of land squatting in Montevideo, Uruguay? Over the last few decades squatter settlements have increased dramatically in this city that lacked a ―frontier‖ of poor illegal settlements until the 1980s, with the exception of a handful of very precarious neighborhoods dubbed cantegriles that started appearing around the 1950s. Today, about 11 % of the city‘s population lives on illegally occupied land (INE 2006). The more than 400 current squatter settlements have expanded the city limits, leaving a very concrete trace of urban and social change. Squatter settlements mushroomed without natural disasters setting people in motion and without population growth due to rural to urban migration processes, frequent causes of land squatting elsewhere. Thus, both knowing how and why land squatting has developed constitute interesting puzzles. No one has yet written about the history of land squatting in Montevideo. This dissertation recovers this history from oblivion and puts it in dialog with the literature on popular politics. From a social movement/contentious politics perspective, in this dissertation I challenge the assumption that socioeconomic factors such as poverty were the only causes triggering land squatting. I test whether political factors also shaped the cycle of land invasions and examine the mechanisms through which those factors – known as political opportunities in the literature - translated into different types of mobilization. Through statistical analysis, in-depth interviews, document analysis, and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, this project will describe and explain the origins and trajectories of iv squatting as an elusive form of collective action during the last half of the 20th century (1947- 2004). The project seeks to a) describe and explain the cycle of squatting and its timing; b) compare trajectories of different kinds of mobilization involved in land seizures and the mechanisms that activated them, and c) understand squatters‘ politics through a thick description of squatters‘ experiences and memories of their relationships with state agencies and politicians and through the experiences and memories of politicians, technocrats and bureaucrats as well. v To my parents, Carmen and Pepe, who made me promise I was not going to keep studying after this dissertation. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................... VII LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................... XI LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. XII PREFACE ................................................................................................................................. XIV 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 ON SQUATTING ................................................................................................ 3 1.2 THE STUDY OF LATIN AMERICAN SQUATTER SETTLEMENTS ....... 5 1.3 SQUATTER SETTLEMENTS AS MOVEMENTS ......................................... 8 1.4 SQUATTER SETTLEMENTS IN THIS STUDY .......................................... 17 2.0 THE CASE .................................................................................................................. 21 2.1 SQUATTING AND THE REPERTOIRE OF COLLECTIVE ACTION OF THE URBAN POOR OF MONTEVIDEO ...................................................................... 21 2.1.1 A stubborn statist tradition in a worn down/elastic state .......................... 22 2.1.2 Statism and Clientelism: continuities and changes .................................... 32 2.1.3 Changing the repertoire ................................................................................ 39 2.1.4 The politics of squatting ................................................................................ 40 2.2 FROM MARGINALITY TO THE POOR WORKING CLASS: A CHANGE IN DEMOGRAPHICS AND IDENTITY ...................................................... 42 vii 2.2.1 The name ........................................................................................................ 42 2.2.2 Demographics through historical and more recent studies of squatters .. 46 2.3 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 53 3.0 HOW TO STUDY ELUSIVE COLLECTIVE ACTION? A CALL FOR MIXED METHODS .................................................................................................................................. 55 3.1 WHY A MIXED METHODS APPROACH?.................................................. 56 3.2 WHAT DID I DO? ............................................................................................. 60 3.2.1 Mini-ethnographies ....................................................................................... 60 3.2.2 Protest event analysis .................................................................................... 69 3.2.2.1 Building an event data set from various sources .............................. 71 3.2.2.2 The event data and its biases .............................................................. 73 3.3 CONCLUSION: QUALITATIVE OR QUANTITATIVE? .......................... 81 4.0 THE CYCLE OF LAND INVASIONS .................................................................... 82 4.1 TIME ................................................................................................................... 83 4.1.1 Late start in relation to the rural-urban migration process ...................... 87 4.1.2 Steady growth during the military regime .................................................. 88 4.1.3 The big peak ................................................................................................... 94 4.1.3.1 From the squatters’ side ..................................................................... 96 4.1.3.2 From the politicians’ side ................................................................... 98 4.1.4 Decline........................................................................................................... 101 4.1.4.1 Legal changes..................................................................................... 102 4.1.4.2 Increasing government responsibility for the land ........................ 107 4.2 TYPES: DISCOVERING HETEROGENEITY ........................................... 108 viii 4.2.1 Land invasions by accretion ....................................................................... 111 4.2.2 Planned invasions ........................................................................................ 116 4.2.3 Subdivision and sale .................................................................................... 126 4.2.4 Prevalence ..................................................................................................... 129 4.3 TYPES OF LAND INVASIONS OVER TIME AND SPACE .................... 130 4.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 139 5.0 INTERACTIVE MODELS FOR AN INTERACTIVE THEORY: EVENT ANALYSIS OF LAND INVASIONS ...................................................................................... 141 5.1 POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES AS A DETERMINANT OF COLLECTIVE ACTION: AN IMPORTED FRAMEWORK ..................................... 141 5.2 PREVIOUS MULTIVARIATE STUDIES OF PROTEST EVENTS IN LATIN AMERICA ........................................................................................................... 144 5.3 STUDYING EVENTS OF LAND SQUATTING IN MONTEVIDEO ....... 148 5.3.1 Definition of contentious event ................................................................... 149 5.3.2 Data ............................................................................................................... 149 5.3.3 Methods ........................................................................................................ 154 5.3.4 Results ........................................................................................................... 155 5.3.5 Comparative results .................................................................................... 161 5.3.6 Discussion ....................................................................................................