Usos locales del derecho en el marco de la judicialización de conflictos urbano ambientales

The case of informal settlements in the Matanza Riachuelo Basin

Abstract

This article aims, from the intersection of the fields of sociology of law and urban studies, to investigate the daily uses of law in informal settlements. More specifically, it analyzes what happens in the implementation of urban environmental policies that are framed in a structural litigation of environmental law, the so-called "Mendoza" case. In this case, the Supreme Court of Justice of Argentina ruled on the cleanup of one of the most polluted river basins in the world, the Matanza Riachuelo, which crosses the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. A qualitative methodology was used in which semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation were carried out in two informal settlements located in the basin and secondary sources (mainly state sources) were surveyed. We reconstructed not only the reference to formal regulations in these territories but also the presence of other maxims and social norms that, even when they do not operate in parallel to the former, have their own dynamics and logics that regulate the daily lives in the neighborhood.