Squatting in Uruguay is the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. In the nineteenth century, pueblos de ratas (rat villages) developed when gauchos were forced to settle by the rural enclosures for cattle farming. In the early twentieth century, European migrant workers lived in conventillos (tenement slums).

History

The first

cantegril ''Cantegril'' is the name given in Uruguay to a shanty town, such as those surrounding its cities including the capital Montevideo. It is equivalent to Brazil's ''favela'' and Peru's ''pueblos jóvenes''. Many of the settlements in Uruguay are ...

land invasions came in

Montevideo Montevideo (, ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2023 census, the city proper has a population of 1,302,954 (about 37.2% of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

, the capital of Uruguay, in the 1940s. The name was a joke, referring to the Cantegril Country Club, which was built in 1947 at the most exclusive Uruguayan beach resort,

Punta del Este Punta del Este () is a seaside city and peninsula on the Atlantic Coast in the Maldonado Department of southeastern Uruguay. Starting as a small town, Punta del Este grew to become a resort for the Latin and North American jet set and tourists. T ...

. A documentary about the phenomenon was produced in 1958, called ''Cantegriles''. Whilst cantegril first referred to all squatter settlements, now it only denotes shanty towns and other informal settlements are known as asentamiento irregulares. As the settlements legalize, they receive help from groups such as FUCVAM (Uruguayan Federation of Mutual Aid Housing Cooperatives) and the slum upgrading program, PMB-PIAI. By 2006, around 140,000 people were living in asentamiento irregulares in Montevideo, making up 11% of the city's population. Land invasions peaked in terms of numbers and planning in the 1990s and since then have declined, although already existing settlements continued to grow. There also people squatting in slums, for example 60 families occupied the former Inlasa smelting factory in

La Teja La Teja is a ''barrio'' (neighbourhood or district) of Montevideo, Uruguay. The neighborhood has a mix of residential and industrial properties, mostly occupied by working class communities, including with a number of informal settlements built o ...

and then complained in 2004 about

lead poisoning Lead poisoning, also known as plumbism and saturnism, is a type of metal poisoning caused by lead in the body. Symptoms may include abdominal pain, constipation, headaches, irritability, memory problems, infertility, numbness and paresthesia, t ...

. La Solidaria was an

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

self-managed social centre A self-managed social center, also known as an autonomous social center, is a self-organized community center in which Anti-authoritarianism, anti-authoritarians put on voluntary activities. These autonomous spaces, often in multi-purpose venue ...

, squatted on Avenida Daniel Fernández Crespo y Cerro Largo in Montevideo in 2012. The project was run by assembly and hosted a cafe, a radio station and the Tierra Purpúrea library. It was evicted in 2017 and subsequently some of the occupiers were charged with damages because they had removed doors, windows and floorboards.

History

References

Further reading