Paper short abstract:

Land appropriation by capital owners and speculative business is a common practice in the city of Buenos Aires, and also is the struggle to regain those spaces by self-organized community collectives. We describe and analyze how the Colegiales community is currently organizing to create a "commons".

Paper long abstract:

Land appropriation by capital owners and speculative business is a common practice in the city of Buenos Aires, one that has been protected (even) by law and political agreements - negotiations across parties in the left-right spectrum. A community self-organized initiative to create an urban arts-and-labor commons in Buenos Aires is described and analyzed in this paper, to show how the struggle to regain public spaces by self-organized community collectives is focused on the notion of "commons" and "solidarity in difference". We describe and analyze how the Colegiales community is currently organizing to create a "commons" by gathering together people from different backgrounds, perspectives, work-activities and experience (e.g., artists, social workers, small neighborhood shop owners, teachers, community organizations, cooperative of workers, etc.). We interpret the ways in which the current struggle for a piece of land in our neighborhood can be traced back to several other struggles over time in our geographical space in Colegiales. Therefore, we conclude by providing some insights into the relationship across geograph(ies), histor(ies), stor(ies), solidarity in difference, and commons.