ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the dimensions of affect and emotion that were part and parcel of the fight over these stigmatised urban homes. It draws ethnographic material from research undertaken between 2006 and 2008; it focuses particularly on the emotional aspects of residents' ambivalent positions, and on the role played by affective memory in coproducing conflict and resistance. To understand the nuances fuelling this emotional journey it is first necessary to provide a brief historical context to the emergence of public housing in Puerto Rico and its relationship to cosmopolitan place making in urban space. The divisive line between being good and legitimate versus bad and unworthy was important to many of its respondents when expressing their strong anti-demolition sentiments and desire to stay in Las Gladiolas. This chapter focuses the importance of capturing, recognising and recuperating the complex narratives and emotional states of being that actually shaped that public housing space, its politics and its demise.
