"Ahora puedo respirar"; espera y autoconstrucción en el campamento Violeta Parra.

Abstract

In this article I will describe the way in which the inhabitants of the Toma Violeta Parra of Cerro Navia signify their waiting processes within application to definitive social housing, physically built in the current location of the settlement .I challenge the conception of waiting as a passive and routine way of confronting state programs (Auyero, 2011), while reflecting on the effectiveness of the construction of forms of temporary contestation and their       allusions to collective manifestations (Koppelman, 2018). Through my  case study, I analyze the existence of collective networks of articulation that underlie individual experiences (Flaherty, 2011) and that bring with them internal articulations with the aim of mitigating the degrees of waiting on the part of the inhabitants. "Now I can breathe"      one of the neighbors of the camp declares, after learning that she had been admitted as part of the  housing project.            After years of applying for her own home, she has been recognized as a beneficiary. Her’s is      a recurring experience  within the campamento , albeit one that is not shared by the entirety of the population of the settlement, a reality that is further complicated by the arrival of migrants to the Toma Violeta Parra.

This work addresses the link between waiting and self-construction. Why think about waiting from self-construction? We will understand this concept as a space that is available to collective organization, that is, as a way to resist state delays in the face of accessing      definitive housing programmes, a process that is brewing little by little and in constant transformation (Caldeira, 2017).

As Palma and Pérez propose (2020) self-construction is consolidated as an exercise of rights      by migrant inhabitants, in such a way that, through these, migrants generate specific practices and meanings associated with their recognition as resident citizens.