How does a community preserve its right to determine its own destiny? Especially when decisions are being made without their input? In our first episode, we begin a journey to answer this question. We start in Argentina, where informal settlement communities are claiming a seat at the table to shape decisions that will protect their homes and neighborhoods from environmental pollution.
Along the way, we discover the delicate dance that a grassroots justice organization gets involved in, and what it takes to keep going in spite of the odds.
Special thanks to Catalina Marino and ACIJ – the Civil Association for Equality and Justice in Argentina.
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[“A Common Pot” intro sting]
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:00:07] This is “A Common Pot,” a podcast where we explore stories and recipes for social justice and systems change from around the world.
[00:00:31] What would you do if someone else decided how to protect your health and well-being without ever talking to you? If you demanded a clean living environment, and the government’s answer was to force you to leave your home, what would you do? This is what happened in Argentina’s Matanza Riachuelo River Basin, one of the most contaminated waterways in Latin America. In 2010, around 63,000 people living within a section of the river basin got word that they were about to be resettled. For many of them, it came as a total surprise when they stumbled upon the announcement in their local newspaper. Just two years before, in 2008, these same communities had won a big court case in Argentina’s Supreme Court. The court had ruled that the effects of the pollution in their communities along the river basin, which was caused by large corporations in the area, needed to be addressed. The court ordered that the area should be cleaned up and future damage prevented. The ruling was one thing, but how it would be implemented and how the communities would be involved- that was something else entirely. Just because a major ruling is handed down by the court, it doesn’t mean that it will be implemented in the best interest of the communities who are most affected. And in 2010, two years after that Supreme Court order, those who were meant to benefit from it were now being displaced. Which leaves us asking a question that you will hear a lot throughout the series. How does a community preserve its right to determine its own destiny? Especially when decisions are being made without their input? In today’s episode, our first episode, we’re sharing the story of the grassroots justice organization ACIJ and their work to establish and strengthen community participation in two informal settlements in Argentina: Villa Veintiuno Veinticuatro, that’s “Town Twenty-One to (21) Twenty-Four (24)” in English, and Villa Inflamable, that’s “Inflammable Town” in English.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:02:43] This is the story of the real work that happens after a big win.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:02:56] Hi. Poorvi! Oh, we already messed that up. [Laughing]
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:03:01] This is Catalina.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:03:02] I’m Catalina Marino. I work in ACIJ, The Civil Association for Equality and Justice. ACIJ is a nonprofit organization, and it’s, dedicated to defend the rights for the more disadvantaged groups of society and to strengthen the democracy in Argentina.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:03:22] One of the most disadvantaged groups in Argentina are those living in informal settlements. AC has been working with Argentina’s informal settlement communities for more than 20 years. Their work in the Matanza Riachuelo River Basin began in 2011.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:03:37] So the river basin is a really big area in Argentina, that includes the Buenos Aires City and 14 other municipalities in the Buenos Aires province.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:03:47] According to the World Bank, an estimated 10% of Argentina’s population lives within the basins 2000km². That’s about 4 million people.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:03:57] Within this area we have like 1600 informal settlements. But again, this is a really, really big area. Then you have some of these settlements that are like next to the river or really close to them, because the river basin is really, really big. And then you have a small part that are next to the river. So just like clarifiers, like it’s not the same to live in the river basin, that to live next to the river. So according to what residents, say, two decades ago, you could really smell and you can really see the pollution in the river and they smell it every day, especially because within the area, lots of industries were established and they used to dump their waste into the water.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:04:50] The two communities that we will be talking about today are Villa Inflamable and Villa 21-24. Villa Inflamable is right on the southeastern border of the city of Buenos Aires. Next door is one of the largest petrochemical compounds in the country. A little further inland from the mouth of the river is Villa 21-24.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:05:16] Villa Inflamable is called “Inflamable” – “Flammable” in English – because there was a fire next to the river to the port, like lots of decades ago. And, yeah, they they kind of they stick with that name. The name kind of has negative like connotation for some of the residents because then it became associated with the pollution.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:05:38] For years, people in the informal settlement of Villa Inflamable were getting sick constantly. And not just a flu or a cold. These were serious and sometimes irreversible health problems.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:05:49] Within the health center, they start identifying like high levels of toluene and lead in blood.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:05:56] Lead is a poisonous heavy metal. Medical and public health experts agree that there’s no such thing as safe levels of lead for the human body. It can cause serious health issues, especially in children and pregnant women. It can have irreversible effects on the neurological system. Once the damage is done, it cannot be undone. And in 2004, a woman named Beatriz Mendoza started taking note of these effects while she was working in Villa Inflamable.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:06:24] She was a social worker working in Villa Inflamable in a health center. And so Beatriz Mendoza, she led like a group of neighbors in 2004, and they filed a lawsuit against the national government and the province of Buenos Aires, and then- and the city of Buenos Aires and 44 companies, and they complained about the damages suffered for the population as a result of the contamination of the Matanza Riachuelo River Basin. So that’s how this really big lawsuit began.
Dr. Andrew Napoli, CELS-FARN-Greenpeace (Archival Tape) [00:06:58]El daño ambiental colectivo producido tiene claros y directos responsables, las autoridades y las industrias y actividades de servicios, si señor.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:07:05] Yeah, it was the first collective lawsuit for contamination that we have in the country.
Dr. Jorge Mosset Iturraspe in Argentina’s Supreme Court, rep. the plaintiff (Archival Tape) [00:07:13]]La contaminación es, sin lugar a dudas, un hecho público y notorio, como lo es también la responsabilidad de los estados.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:07:25] In 2008, the Supreme Court of Justice issued this historic ruling that the state and the different governments were, like, responsible for carrying out sanitation actions within the river basin.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:07:38] The final court ruling said three things: the quality of life had to be improved for people around the river basin, the environment had to be cleaned up and restored, and future damages needed to be prevented.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:07:50] Yeah, it was like historical ruling, because it was like to understand that different levels of state were responsible for protecting the environment and the residents.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:08:02] In 2010, two years after the ruling was handed down by the court, the people of Villa Inflamable read the news to find out that they were going to be displaced.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:08:12] Governments didn’t have any structure nor plan to make this decision like participatory. So what started to happen, especially in Villa Inflamable, is that information never came from official- government officials didn’t go to the population to say, that they were resettled. People realized that they had to move, because of the newspapers. There was a kind of an agreement that said that every family living next to the river should be resettled, relocated from their original home because of pollution.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:08:56] The communities whose health and well-being were already deeply affected by the pollution of the area also had to upend their lives further, and they were expected to do so without any say in the matter. Out of the two settlements, Villa Inflamable was the one that faced resettlement of the entire community. ACIJ, together with community leaders and the residents, tried to reason with local government officials about Villa Inflamable. They tried to convince them that the community deserved to have information about the resettlement ahead of time, and that their input should be considered in any decision moving forward. They also tried to explain that this would be in the government’s own best interest, because it would avoid complications with the resettlement later on. But the government wouldn’t agree. And so ACIJ took action against the local government.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:09:50] And so eventually what we did was, to- yeah, we filed a lawsuit.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:09:55] Another lawsuit. Yes.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:09:56] To say that people in inflamable, they had their rights to have full understanding of what was happening, to have full information about their government’s plans and to have a space where they could discuss, have a say, and yeah, even decide with the government where to move. And we won that case. And so eventually we had a ruling that said that people in Inflamable have the right to have information and to participate in the process. And that was a really, really big win. And so we have lots of good practices, documents- formal documents that kind of allow us to ask the government to fulfill this participation and information demands.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:10:45] And believe it or not, this is where the real challenge began. Filing the lawsuit and winning was big, but it also meant that ACIJ now had to figure out how to make sure everyone involved walked the talk of community participation. Two big challenges came up. First, there was the challenge of how; how to organize these communities so that they would take this win, consolidate the gains, and build a kind of critical mass to move things forward. Second, there was also the challenge of how to get them to know and use the law- to make sure that they advocated for what they needed and deserved throughout the resettlement process, but also far into the future, so that this wouldn’t just be a one time deal, but the knowledge would be embedded in these communities.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:11:34] The Villa 21-24 was already a more organized one. You had lots of organizations working there. But in a way, what happened was that they had at the beginning really good advisors. Public defense- the lawyers that provide free legal advice from the state- they were working there. And so they helped them to become like a big group, to think more of the collective and not of the individual problems. Right? And they elected delegates like, yeah, like leaders from different blocks – like the settlements have different blocks. And so they chose their representation within the block. And those, leaders became, like the Cuerpo de Delegados, like the community leaders of the Cuenca.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:12:30] The level of organization was impressive, to say the least. This is a massive population. Over 2000 families in Villa 21-24 were affected by the court ruling. Community leaders in Villa 21-24 even managed to pinpoint issues important to certain sections or blocks of the community and started to strategize around those issues, for example…
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:12:53] At first they decided that there was one specific block that they had really a lot of health problems. And so they decided that the first solution with their houses- that whatever intervention the government had to do, they had to start by this specific block. So even they decided what to do first in government like, yeah, decisions. And so they started to meet and they start to discuss what was better as a strategy. And they had, their, well, their advisors at first, and I think that is a really powerful, like a construct, like a community construction. They understood what the goals were and they- even they decided what was more relevant for them.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:13:47] Now, remember, we’re talking about two different communities. So far we’ve been talking about Villa 21-24, where only a part of the population faced resettlement but Villa Inflamable was a much larger community and their situation was different.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:14:02] Villa Inflamable’s case was terrible because they-
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:14:05] “They” being the government.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:14:07] -they had decided that the whole settlement had to be resettled. So it was a really big resettlement process.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:14:13] Villa Inflamable needed more support. And so ACIJ worked with the community to help fill the gaps. They held workshops and legal empowerment courses to help the community understand their rights under the law, and then use the law to demand what they were entitled to.
ACIJ Community Participation Workshop (Archival Tape) [00:14:33] Para aquellos que las armaron. Calla, y del lado de la Constitucion que había?
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:14:35] We discussed with lots of people in Villa Inflamable what they- what were the things that they could claim. Right? And so participation and information was of course one. And also to have a say in the government decisions.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:14:49] And they gathered information. Lots and lots of information.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:14:53] People in Villa Inflamable, they didn’t have water. They have like a problem with the polluted water because the soil was polluted. And so there was a lot of, yeah, it was a really big problem at first. Of course, they didn’t have roads, paved roads. They didn’t have, like formal services, of course. And because they were to be resettled, the government didn’t wanted to invest in formal infrastructure. So what we did was to understand what was the problem, we had our own information that we built with the neighborhood. And that was a really strong tool to make the government at least to face the situation that the communities were facing. Right?
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:15:37] Through surveys and regular community meetings in Villa Inflamable, ACIJ worked hard to engage the community to document and better understand their own case. It was a constant dance on two levels. On one level, ACIJ was working to convince the government to provide spaces for meaningful participation. On the other level, they were working to equip the informal settlement communities with tools and information that they needed to understand their rights and express their demands in the language of rights. And language is important. A lot of the time, marginalized communities come up against this problem of lack of fluency in the language of law. Building this fluency takes time. It takes years of studying to understand something that is inherently complicated. But one woman in Villa Inflamable seemed to pick up the language. Her name is Claudia Espanola.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:16:30] How I know that participation has worked? The first thing that I think about is like, Claudia.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:16:37] If you search around YouTube, you’ll find Claudia making her voice heard in front of the camera. She’s confident. Her long, curly hair has a reddish hue, and there’s a fire in her spirit that comes out when she talks about what her community needs.
Claudia Espínola, Villa Inflamable community leader (Archival Tape) [00:16:53] En esas audiencias se supone que tenemos que estar nosotros. Quién era nuestra voz. Quénes nos representaban en todo caso. Saber eso en el 2015.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:17:02] She has, like, this legal rights discourse really internalized in her speech. And I think that way of expressing and also like framing your demands are completely, necessary to- Yeah, it gives you more strength when you discuss with governments or with judges or with other public officers. When you see what she does now in the neighborhood, you understand that she’s been fighting for her neighborhood for more than 15 years. And what everything that she does- like, she’s a community leader and she develops lots of strategies to deal with everyday problems in the settlement.
Members of the Villa Inflamable informal settlement community attend a workshop facilitated by ACIJ. On the right-hand side is community leader Claudia Espínola.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:17:48] But as important as the leadership of individuals like Claudia is, organizing is about building collective power. As organizers, it’s necessary to have a critical mass of community members involved and to keep them interested for a long time. This is not easy.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:18:05] So I think it’s easier to make people like, be involved if they see what they have to gain. If not- if you say someone, “Okay, come here and I discuss with you it like this, and we’ll be fighting for 15 years!” Well, maybe it’s not so easy, right? You will have some participation and you will have some community leaders that will be involved. But they are not- the- like- that’s why they are leaders. Or, that’s why there are some few people that are more willing to be part of those discussions, more strategic discussions, and not so like short term with short benefits. Right?
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:18:46] Keeping a community engaged in processes of change is not easy. Results take time and people are busy. There are costs to participation.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:18:56] Participation is like- we said that people should participate and the community should be like, be involved in every decision. And then, what happens in informal settlements, at least in Argentina, but I think in every informal settlement is that people have jobs and have lives and have- and, yeah- and so you ask them to be like completely involved in their government decisions and so- but for free, because it’s in their interest to be involved and to have a say in what they- in what things are the government doing in their neighborhoods. So, yeah. The community roles now also, not only that you need to organize to get water or to get food or to take the children to school and to work your productive role. But also you need to, like, accomplish your community role. And in that case means to be involving what is happening in your settlement and do something about it. So, yeah, it’s- the cost is high. And maybe if you don’t see the benefit, like, right now then- or maybe you- you’ve been fighting for 15 years, so now you want to rest. And I think that’s kind of. Yeah. Completely fair. There’s no one recipe to solve all problems, right? You have to try like different strategies in different communities. And sometimes you got it right. And sometimes it’s- you don’t.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:20:31] Two years ago, in 2022, the government made an announcement. Villa Inflamable residents would not be resettled after all.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:20:40] Our goal was for the government to open the spaces and to make the people be really part of the decision. That didn’t happen as we planned it. Like when we started the legal case. They decided that they will develop a slum upgrading program in the settlement, so that people would be- would stay in their homes.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:21:03] A new slum upgrading program meant that the community would remain in place. No one would be resettled. And this meant that ACIJ’s entire strategy had to change too.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:21:17] The problem with that strategy now is that we face different challenges. So now that we are going to have this slum upgrading program, we want people to participate in that and the design of a plan. But now the challenge that we face is that maybe the community is not mobilized enough because their greatest fear was to be resettled, and now they are going to stay in the settlement. So when we talk about success in these strategies is- I think sometimes we want, like, the whole package and maybe you don’t have that and you need to, I don’t know, think more strategically about your goals. Or maybe, I don’t know, face that maybe not all that you wanted you could have. I think Villa Inflamable example is an interesting example because at that point, at first when we started the case, participation was really crucial for them because not being able to participate mean- like meant to be resettled from their homes, and that was it. And participation seemed to be the way to have a say and to have impact in the decision. When the the resettled option is not longer on the table participation is not like a goal in itself. If community doesn’t think that participation is what they need to do now, if they are okay with the decision of the local government and they want to see what the government’s plans are and not be actively participating after 15 years of fight, then we need to respect that decision and then maybe step back and try to see what are the the demands now. And I think that is essential. If not, you’re imposing like, yeah- like yeah, like a cause that it’s not longer the community cause. I think even if, yeah, what we thought about 15 years ago is not completely what we got, I think that’s a really direct impact of our actions. Apart from that, I’m trying to be positive and optimistic. And in a way, when I see that the local government decision not to resettle Villa Inflamable, is what- that’s the context now, I think we should see that also as a success; that it’s not direct, that it’s not- I cannot be so brave to say, “No, we we did that. Like, this was our work,” because it’s not. it’s part of our work. It’s part of the the whole process. Of course, the local government will try to make it as it was a political decision. And of course it was. But I think that we- with the community mobilization, with the court case, with the litigation, with the demands about participation and information, eventually we made it harder for government to insist on a strategy that the community didn’t want for them to do. So when we said that you should not resettle Villa Inflamable without community participation, eventually they decided not to resettle Villa Inflamable at all. And they say that now it’s because the environmental risk is not as high, whatever. But in a way, they measure what the things were at the moment and the forces that they had to deal with, and I think that the community mobilization was part of the decision of the local government to go on with in-situ upgrading. So that could be a success.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:25:15] And then in November 2023, Argentina’s political landscape shifted. The right wing populist leader, Javier Milei, was elected as Argentina’s new president.
BBC News, Archival Tape [00:25:28] Javier Milei have been celebrating his victory in the presidential election. Mr. Milei, known as, “El Loco” or the Madman, pulled off a major upset. Provisional results show the self-styled anarcho capitalist won with 55.7% of the vote.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:25:43] Yeah, well the context- the political context is not good for social justice in general. Like the president said a lot, multiple times, that he doesn’t believe in social justice, that social justice is lie. So. Well, we are dealing with that framework.
Javier Milei, President of Argentina (Archival Tape) [00:26:02] De hecho como dice el gran Jesús Huertas de Soto: La justicia social es violenta e injusta. O sea, no es ni justa ni social ni nada, es una aberración. So, as Jesus Huertas de Soto says: Social justice is violence and injust, it’s not just or anything of the sort. Far from it. It’s an aberration.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:26:27] Remember that slum upgrading program that Catalina talked about earlier? The same program that was responsible for upgrading Villa Inflamable, now that it would not be resettled? That program is financed by the national government, and without national leadership that believes in social justice, it leaves a big question mark around what happens next. The stakes for development in this region are high. Since 2009, the world Bank has been a key investor in the Riachuelo System, something that they’re calling a “mega infrastructure project” on their website. It’s a big investment that will help implement the 2008 Supreme Court ruling and bring improved water and sanitation services for over 4 million people. The total amount that’s being fronted by the World Bank to make this project happen? $1.2 billion. Yes, that’s billion with a B. It’s the World Bank’s biggest investment in Latin America and the Caribbean to date. After the interview, we asked Catalina in an email exchange what she thought about this project. She said that they’re afraid. Afraid that the government’s decision to stop all public investment will translate to a suspension of this project. The success of the project also requires the Argentinean government to do its part. For example, the project may lay down pipes for water and sanitation, but does not always provide home connections. Catalina is worried that once the World Bank’s funded portion of the project ends, the government could decide not to continue their part of the deal – the part that actually makes it possible for households to have access to a connection to the system. And thus, the Riachuelo System, the “mega project” could hit a dead end even before it’s within reach of people’s front doors.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:28:19] On the other hand, it’s not only that we won’t have the resources. That’s in itself, it’s a lot. But also, we are dealing with a public discourse that is not open to hear claims that are framed in the rights-based language. We will not be able to convince any government official that people have rights to do something, because they are not like- they don’t see reality through that lens. So, yeah, it’s- it’s not a good time.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:28:54] So what do you do? What do you do when you’ve spent so long giving social justice a concrete shape? On the one hand, building power in communities, and on the other hand, convincing the government that listening to community voices leads to better decisions. And after all that, the institutions completely abandoned the language of social justice. One thing about Catalina and her colleagues at ACIJ is that they don’t sit around and wait to see what happens next. Her team at ACIJ is trying to learn- learn from others who might have their own experiences with closing democratic spaces, and can teach them lessons on how to navigate this moment. The Grassroots Justice Network has become that critical space for learning.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:29:37] We were better off than other countries or other communities are to fight for our rights. And the communities were like- they have this minimum of rights being respected. I think that now, what I want to understand is how you could develop community mobilization in other contexts, like, when democracy is not given, right? Or when retaliation could be more violent. Not to say that we are going in that direction, because I don’t think that’s where we are going. But what I think is we are now dealing with a political context that is not, again, open to some legal rights discourses or language. And so I think we should learn from others and how to deal with that set of challenges. I don’t know, I think for me that will be promising.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:30:37] There is no recipe, like Catalina says. There is no one strategy that will guarantee community participation, but there are guiding values and principles that inform ACIJ and their work, that help them shift and readjust their strategy as the tide changes.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:30:53] Participation is one of the core values, right? We we are really convinced that in order to have like social urban justice, we need community participation and engagement, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it is in the best interest of local governments and public policy is better when reflect what community needs and desires are also. So of course, participation is a center of our actions, but I think that what guides most of our strategies is, in a way, trying to understand what the community needs or what the community wants at some point.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:31:48] The future of Villa 21-24 and Villa Inflamable is unknown. But there is one thing we know: as long as there are the Claudia’s of the world, community members who know, use and shape the law, community power will continue to grow. The fight may take years, but ultimately community members will shape their own destiny. And so the dance goes on. [MUSIC]
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:32:20] We named this podcast “A Common Pot,” because we wanted to explore recipes for social justice and systems change from around the world. Talking to Catalina, it’s clear that when it comes to community participation, there is no one recipe. Instead, you need to find different strategies for different contexts. Well, maybe that’s the case, but what about actual recipes? We also ask Catalina what her favorite recipe is to cook.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:32:45] So we have a grill in the balcony. That’s the most Argentinian that you could get. Like a grill in the balcony, like in the building.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:32:53] I love that.
Catalina Marino, ACIJ [00:32:54] My neighbor from, upstairs, they won’t be fun about the grill in the balcony, I think.
Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:33:04] This episode was produced by me, Poorvi Chitalkar. Our managing producer is Jackie Sofia. Audio engineering and sound design by Mohamad Khreizat. Editorial support by Marta Almela Menjón, Maria Atuesta and the Namati Communications team. Additional support by Anuradha Joshi. And a very special thanks to Catalina Marino and ACIJ for sharing their story. “A Common Pot: Stories of Grassroots Justice,” is a production of Namati and the Grassroots Justice Network. To join the network, head to GrassrootsJusticeNetwork [dot] org and follow us on social media on YouTube, X formerly Twitter and Facebook at GrassrootsJN.
[“A Common Pot” Outro Sting]