Informal territory

A new reading of informal access to housing and land in Chile

Abstract

Informal Territory is proposed as an alternative to the processes and concepts that describe informal access to housing and land. Unlike related terms, Informal Territory welcomes the materialization of informality in different locations and scales, whether in central, pericentral and/or peripheral areas, and urban and/or rural areas. Methodologically, it is proposed as a working concept since its theoretical and empirical discussion continues to develop. Its approach is based on the analysis of four territories in northern Chile, where 120 interviews were conducted. Informal Territory embraces different forms of production and agency, including the political strategies and projects behind each occupation. Produced by vulnerable families with low-middle and low incomes, and speculative subjects such as sub-lessors, managers, pirate developers and owners. Informal Territory is also conceived as the concatenation of any individual or collective practice to design living alternatives, responding to obsolete and restrictive housing proposals of the State. Exposing the existence of barriers, facilitators and strategies, the Informal Territory evidences the overlapping of different political projects, like self-management, and self-construction, led mainly by women heads of household, in the course of strategies to settle, eradicate or materialize other residential projects.