The movement of popular and neighborhood assemblies in the city of buenos aires, 2002-2011

Abstract

The assembly movement of Buenos Aires was one of the main political actors that emerged with the social explosion of December 2001. It initially called for a complete renewal of the country's elites, but it gradually divided into a sector that focused on neighborhood demands and a sector that adopted a national perspective. A detailed examination of a decade of development of two assemblies that are paradigmatic examples of the movement's division show that they retained their political identities over time, with the result that the "neighborhood" assembly disbanded once the problems on which it had concentrated were considered resolved while the "popular" assembly continued to engage in cultural and political projects.