Transforming the hillside into a home

networks of juntanza between women in the Comuna Popular in Medellin

Abstract

In the Comuna Popular, the first settlement recognized as informal in Medellín, two logics under dispute configure the habitable space: an institutional one that —from the outside— observes, analyzes, and determines the representations of space; and another one in which its inhabitants —from the inside— resist, transgress and build representational spaces. Its importance lies in that, by categorizing it as informal or irregular, institutions have justified multiple spatial interventions imposed from above that do not consider the needs, interests, and capacities of its inhabitants. Over the years, however, the Comuna Popular has consolidated over the years as a resistance space in which inhabitants challenge the hegemonic narratives about living the city. Women have played a fundamental role in this process since, from the very first settlements and in the State’s absence, they had to assume the principal role as producers of habitable space. Thus, this article seeks to document, through a bottom-up approach, the process of production of space led by the women in the Comuna Popular. For this end, this article recovers the testimonies of female social leaders who transformed the hillside into a home through networks of solidarity and juntanza.