CAPILLARIES OF URBAN TRANSFORMATION

URBAN MOVEMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA

Abstract

This article initially develops a critical discussion of manuel Castells' concept of urban social movements. In the following section, the political, social and  spatial conditions of urban movements in latin-American metropolises during the twentieth century are analyzed. Three phases and types of movements are distinguished here: radical urban revolts in the context of the student movements in the late 1960s; urban movements resurrecting during the decline of authoritarian regimes in the 1970s; and reactions to the social consequences of neoliberalism by collective urban agents since the late 1990s.