ABSTRACT
This article traces the emergence and decline of urban populism in the relationship between informal urban settlements and the Peruvian state. We set the foundational moments of this relationship on the political negotiation that followed the land invasion of Pamplona and the subsequent resettlement and foundation of Villa El Salvador, in the desert south of Lima, in May 1971. We argue that in the juncture of the left-leaning military dictatorship that ruled Peru between 1968 and 1975, the case of Villa El Salvador set the tone for almost two decades of relationships between informal neighborhoods and the state. Incorporating new ideas about squatter settlements as spaces of hope rather than misery, and acknowledging a new demographic and socio-political context inside Peruvian barriadas, the new model included and represented the collective demands of self-organized urban communities, from then on called pueblos jóvenes, under a recurrent Latin American populist style. A model for a new political relationship and a radical political community, Villa El Salvador challenged the authoritarian-clientelistic status quo. However, since the late 1980s, the combined challenges of political violence and fragmentation, economic collapse, neoliberal reform, and authoritarianism have weakened its grassroots communal political base and shifted the focus of local politics towards individualized and increasingly market-oriented demands. Still, the populist experience of Villa El Salvador looms large over the history and present of informal urbanization in Peru.
