ABSTRACT
By analysing the expression “we are not invasión, we are asociación”, this chapter aims to show how, in the heart of Arequipa's peripheral settlements, legality can be seen as hybrid. With this in mind, the first step in understanding the current situation on the peripheries of Arequipa will be to focus on changes in land use. Then, taking a historical perspective, it will focus on two closely related terms representing the margins: the invasión and the invasor. These categories will be analysed to highlight what they evoke and the processes that underlie them. In the past as in the present, they are associated with informal spaces. Then, on the basis of empirical material, this chapter will show how these so-called invasores and the spaces described as informal, associated with the margins and illegality, cannot be confined to them. In fact, the ‘formal’ in part structures these peripheries, in particular, because the law offers them possibilities for legal existence. In the third and final section, the chapter will focus on the asociación, analysing how this legal status enables the construction of a distance from the notions of invasor and invasión. Ultimately, an analysis of the transition from invasores/invasiones to asociaciones invites us to question informality, to observe a formality in the making and to think of legality in hybrid terms.
