“Villas miseria” en Buenos Aires hacia mediados del siglo XX: tensiones políticas y primeras conceptualizaciones estatales

This article analyzes the first state conceptualizations of precarious urban settlements in Buenos Aires. To this aim we examine the first plan for the eviction of “villas miseria” (the local term for informal urbanizations) in Argentina (Emergency Plan, 1956) together with its conceptual antecedents and political context. It is argued that the state idea of “villa” crystallized in Argentina in the 1950s around this plan and at the intersection of two scales: national and inter-American. At the national level, the tensions between supporters and opponents of Peronism determined that this new urban concept would emerge with a strong political bias. But also, in dialogue with inter-American organizations, the discursive matrix of this conceptualization was marked by hemispheric agendas linked to the Cold War. Through a meticulous study of original historical sources the article reconstructs this process.