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This paper analyzes the role of political neighborhood brokers in the execution of public policies in slums. It studies their relationships to the State as well as their capabilities to boost or hinder the implementation of public policies. In particular, the paper focuses on the processes of redevelopment at two slums in the City of Buenos Aires: Rodrigo Bueno and Playón de Chacarita. The evidence gathered shows that if the State and the brokers establish relationships of cooperation the process of redevelopment smoothly moves forward. On the contrary, if they come into conflict the entire process is put at risk. Furthermore, the absence of brokers compels the State to lead the redevelopment without links to the neighborhood which obstructs the development of the project. The same situation occurs if brokers lose their legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the reconversion experiences of four social organizations to sustain the social bond and collective care in popular neighborhoods of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA), Argentina, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on qualitative research work with an ethnographic approach, conducted remotely between July and September 2020, we i) reconstructed the social context and characterized the activities of the socio-community organizations studied in AMBA, before and during the pandemic; ii) sketched images such as the collective "la olla" organization, which describe the community provision of care; and iii) showed how, in the context of restricted movement, the organizations had to deploy tactics to "contain," "accompany" and take care of themselves and others. In line with debates about an economy of care, which produces values surreptitiously appropriated by the rest of the economy, this paper focuses on those resulting from socio-community practices related to: food --"la olla" and "la fila"--, health, and socio-affective --"containment"--. This proposal is intended to contribute to the theoretical-political field of discussion, in which it is situated, on the paradox between the centrality of (socio-community) care, for the production of social welfare, and its insufficient recognition in economic, social, and political terms. Methodologically, the paper portrays the challenges --for social research-- of reading and interpreting practices when co-presenciality is technologically mediated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen El objeto del presente trabajo es la revisión crítica de la intervención y el planeamiento urbanístico en el casco histórico de la ciudad de Cartagena (España), con el objetivo de evaluar de qué manera se ha realizado un proceso de expulsión planificada de los barrios populares históricos. Para ello, se parte del análisis de los procesos de industrialización y urbanización desde el siglo XVIII hasta la actualidad, realizando una genealogía de los diferentes instrumentos de planificación que han intervenido en el ámbito de estudio, y relacionándolos con la evolución y el funcionamiento de los diferentes modos de producción, espacialización y territorialización del sistema capitalista. Además, la lectura de estos barrios como un ejemplo de común urbano por su papel como soporte de las redes sindicales y de movilización política, el sostenimiento de las tareas de cuidados y la reproducción social, y el carácter heterotópico de uno de estos espacios como “barrio chino”, permiten entender este proceso de expulsión y eliminación de los barrios como un ejercicio de desposesión o cercamiento del común. Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyse critically the intervention and urban planning in the historic centre of the city of Cartagena (Spain), in order to evaluate how a process of planned expulsion of the historic working-class neighbourhoods has been carried out. Starting from the analysis of the processes of industrialization and urbanization of the city from the eighteenth century to the present, the investigation makes a genealogy of the different planning instruments that have intervened in the area of study, relating them to the evolution and characteristics of the different modes of production, spatialization and territorialization of the capitalist system. In addition, these neighbourhoods are read as an example of urban commons due to their role as a support for political mobilization networks, care tasks and social reproduction, and the heterotopic character of one of these spaces as a red-light district, allowing us to understand this process of expulsion and elimination of neighbourhoods as an enclosure of the commons.