Los saqueos y las ollas populares de 1989 en el Gran Buenos Aires. Pasado y presente de una experiencia formativa

Abstract

In the eighties, a new phenomenon transforms the urbanization processes of the Metropolitan Conurbation of Buenos Aires: settlements on private or public lands. The authors, members of a research team of the University of General Sarmiento (Argentina), interviewed the inhabitants of these settlements and were surprised by the frecquent mentions to the saqueos (pillages/plunderings) and ollas populares (popular stews) which happened twelve years ago, in a context of hiperinflation. In this article, these facts are considered as constitutive of a formative experience iniciated by the organization after the takeover of the lands, followed by the plunderings to the supermarkets and other stores during the hiperinflation of 1989. It gives place, afterwards, to comedores populares (communitary dining rooms) and guarderías (kindergardens), so as other organizative means that began as a response to the hiperinflation and still exist. Our inquiry leans on the narratives of the settlers and different newspapers of that time.