The Role of Participatory Social Mapping in the Struggle of the Territory and the Right to the City: A Case Study in Buenos Aires

Abstract

We present a case study of Social Mapping and Participatory Cartography over a shaded territory in Buenos Aires City, Argentina. The project "Caminos de la Villa" was possible thanks to the collaboration of multiple NGOs that worked together to provide visibility on development issues in poor neighborhoods, commonly called "Villas" and "Asentamientos". We take a critical perspective on how developing such tools are embedded of expectation, negotiations and interactions between actors. Doing ethnographic research and documentation analysis, we found that the value for residents is not in the tool itself but in the appropriation process and empowering, led by acquiring new knowledge at working collectively.