The Fabrication of a Moral Community. The Case of the Victims of the Matanza-Riachuelo Litigation

Abstract

Based on an ethnography study conducted between 2010 and 2015, I analyze the relocalization of riverside slums in the City of Buenos Aires. ArgentinaÍ€™s maximum judicial authority mandated the process due to the neighborhoodÍ€™s proximity to a highly contaminated river. I investigate how some dwellers of a problematic location appeal to an environmental narrative, which typically adheres to a core claim regarding housing or living conditions. How can the right to a healthy environment Í€“which can be anchored on the mere cultural recognition of "being affected"Í€“articulate with a dynamic network of other rights? The harm, which afflicts some of those bodies, becomes, through diverse translations, a political device. The analysis of the negotiations of those affected brings us to the potential of suffering in the creation of moral communities (Pita, 2010) and in the search for recognition in order to bend the path of certain policies.