ABSTRACT
In Latin American cities, peripheries are the territories of leftovers: marginal fields, inhospitable lands, flooding areas, and contaminated places where unrepresented communities are forced to live. Latin American peripheries are a paradigmatic phenomenon to understand and measure the impact of the System's project characterised by processes of dispossession (Harvey, David. 2003. The ‘New’ Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession . Oxford: Oxford University) and pollution (Liboiron, Max. 2021. Pollution is Colonialism. Durham: Duke University Press). These processes threaten the physical integrity of bodies as they displace, intoxicate and dispossess people of their right to their city. However, within the System's remnants, it is possible to find latent insurgent seeds that could be activated. Besides, these remnants – and literally, garbage collectors and recyclers – may constitute the main counter force to the System as well as the source of an alternative emancipatory project. This case study shares reflections derived from a series of research as well as design and activist practices on the Saladillo stream in Rosario, Argentina conducted by Matéricos Periféricos – in English, peripheral materials – a group of architects for social and environmental justice with base in the same city. Their practices consist of site-specific practices: data collection and systematisation, monitoring the physical evolution of peripheries and development of participatory design methods, technological experiments, design proposals and activist practices.
