The villas of Buenos Aires, also referred to as villas miserias, are informal settlements found in Argentina, mostly around the largest urban settlements. The term was adopted from Bernardo Verbitsky‘s 1957 novel Villa Miseria también es América (“Villa Miseria is also [a part of] the Americas”). The villas, ranging from precarious to organized communities, have been the basis for slum-upgrading research and national housing programs.

On Monday 9 December at COAC in Barcelona, a conference organized by Fundación kreanta titled El Buenos Aires invisible: Las villas, will address the issues surrounding these “invisible” communities as part of the knowledge exchange promoted by the foundation’s Cátedra Medellín-Barcelona in order to encourage new forms of bidirectional cooperation between Latin American Cities.

Participants include Mercè Tatjer, professor of the University of Barcelona and coordinator of the investigation team “Barraques Barcelona“; Xavier Camino, anthropologist, professor at Elisava and also member of the investigation team “Barraques Barcelona”; and Custodia Moreno, expresident of the Neighborhood Association of El Carmel neighborhood in Barcelona.

The conference will take place from 7pm-9pm at the COAC Auditorium (Plaça Nova, 5, 08002 Barcelona). Attendance is free by sending an email to catedra@kreanta.org. For more info, see the flyer below.

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