La ciudad de los vecinos: Buenos Aires, 2007-2011

This article summarizes the main points in an ongoing investigation for a magister thesis, which, from a perspective focused on the social production of meaning, proposes an analysis of the ways in which the figure of “the neighbors” acquires importance in light of political processes and urban transformationsin the City of Buenos Aires during the 2007-2011 period. In this context, “the neighbors” is erected as a legitimate actor in demands towards the authorities, while, in its name, the local administration executes interventions and urban transformations. Various discourses are characterized in this investigation: vecinalista (neighborhood-centered), securitario (security-centered), and patriomonialambientalista (environmental-patrimonial). It is argued that, contrary to the belief that the term“neighbors” refers in some general sense to the “inhabitants of a city,” in each of the aforementioned discourses this term is constructed in several ways, according to the demands of the discourse, accordingto its relationship to other figures (“politicians”, “companies”, “criminals”, “street vendors”, etc.), andaccording to conceptions about politics and the city. The present analysis is based on statements from self-defined neighborhood groups, as well as actors linked at various levels to local government. At the theoretical level, this project aims to study questions concerning the relationship between political identities and conceptions of space, as well as the links between discourse, politics, and subjectivity.