Ana Vilenica
Biographic Data
| ID | 1700079 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ana Vilenica |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ana |
| FAMILY NAME | Vilenica |
| SIGNATURE | VILENICA A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Fracture Analysis Consultants (United States) |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3723-6941 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 39 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Feminist and Tenant movement in Argentina
This conversation with Argentine feminist theorist and activist Lucía Cavallero explores the intersections between the feminist movement Ni Una Menos and the tenant movement Inquilinos Agrupados within the broader context of Argentina’s shift toward authoritarian financialisation under the presidency of Javier Milei. This exchange traces three phases of feminist–tenant convergence—pre-pandemic, pandemic, and authoritarian—highlighting how feminis…
Periphery in Movement
This article initiates a conversation on how contemporary Eastern European peripheralization and the hegemony of the energy transition impact social struggles, introducing the concept of “Periphery in Movement.” Through the examination of Serbia’s anti-extractivist movement against the mining corporation Rio Tinto, we ground this concept through three core specificities. The first is the power imbalance positioning the movement in opposition to c…
The Kitchen‐Work of Collaborative Research
Problems that collective actors struggle with require collaborative and transformative knowledge production to be solved. Despite the long tradition of participatory approaches in social science research, issues concerning collaborative methodologies are often located at the bottom of the knowledge hierarchy. We want to place them at the centre of social movement research, but also direct attention to the processes through which collaborative kno…
Urban Marginality, Racialisation, Interdependence
From anti-socialist urbanism to fostering paths for insurgent global urban futures
Cross‐Movement Radical Housing Alliances in Argentina
This paper explores the intersections between tenant and feminist movements in Argentina, focusing on the collaboration between Inquilinos Agrupados and the Ni Una Menos collective . It highlights how feminist–tenant alliances have created new feminist grammars in tenant organising through forms of solidarity and feminist pedagogies. The paper argues that tenant struggles cannot be viewed as single‐issue movements, but must be understood through …
Archiving the Housing Conjuncture
The past months have continued to exacerbate crises of housing, home, displacement, dispossession, and other state-sanctioned forms of violence and premature death. We witness erasure of histories, lives lived, belongings, and homes, which are intentional strategies to forcibly remove people from place and to make it seem as though they were never there. The authors thus document this conjunctural moment in radical housing struggles and collectiv…
Tracing a long history of the Habitat International Coalition and the social production of habitat
In "Tracing a Long History of International Habitat Coalition Making and Social Production of Housing," Ana Vilenica engages with Enrique Ortiz and Maria Silvia Emanuelli from HIC-AL to explore the evolution of housing justice movements and the role of the Habitat International Coalition (HIC) in advocating for social production of housing. The conversation provides a historical perspective on the coalition's inception. It outlines the foundation…
Dismantling rentier logic
In the conversation "Dismantling Rentier Logic: Tenants Struggles in Argentina," Ana Vilenica and Moisés Quiroz engage with Garvazio Munoz from Inquilinos Agrupados (IA), delving into Argentina's housing crisis and its effects on renters. Garvazio Munoz provides a historical perspective on tenant organising in Argentina, starting with Juana Rouco Buela's leadership in the 1907 tenants' strike against steep rent increases and the Movimiento de Inq…
Cooperativism as pedagogy
This conversation with Gustavo Machado discusses the role of cooperativism as a pedagogical process in Uruguay. Machado emphasizes how cooperatives serve as models for housing production and transformative social learning processes, embedding collective action and mutual aid into daily life. He distinguishes between housing, habitat, and inhabitation, advocating for a broader understanding of living that transcends physical structures and integra…
Housing as a battlefield
Since October 2023, we have witnessed the human and material devastation brought about by the horrific mediatised genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, itself preceded by a long history of ‘urbacide’—an intentional form of urban destruction characterised by siege and denied rehabilitation (Chiodelli 2022). In his research on modern warfare and ‘domicide’ in Syria (2022), Amar Azzouz has spoken eloquently about ‘...the millions of or…
Rent controls in comparative perspective
In Scotland, the policy landscape around rent controls is rapidly evolving and full of uncertainty. At this critical moment, an international symposium in Edinburgh brought together activists and academics in similar contexts living with or fighting for rent controls from across Europe and North America. This contribution is organised around reflections from the participants on (1) the history of rent controls in their area; (2) the current rent …
Accompanying popular organizations through grassroots planning in Argentina
In this conversation, Beatriz Pedro, a professor of El Taller Libre de Proyecto Social (TLPS) shares her insights on grassroots planning accompanying popular organizations in Argentina. Beginning with Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, Pedro describes how university students and professors mobilized to collaborate with popular organizations to address inadequate housing and urban abandonment. This collaboration evolved into a social approach to de…
Dialogical devices and political possibilities of art
‘Dialogical Devices and Political Possibilities of Art: Occupy, Inhabit, Resist,’ is a conversation with Sandra Calvo an interdisciplinary artist based in Mexico, exploring the intersection of art and struggles for home and territory. Sandra Calvo elucidates her dialogical approach in accompanying communities in struggle, employing dialogical devices that foster conversations and potential spaces for expression and re-signification in conflict sc…
It's not about building houses; it's about building people's power
This conversation offers a look into the practices of the Movimiento Territorial de Liberación (MTL), a political and social organization in Argentina. It highlights the organization’s history, values, and significant projects, such as housing developments and community initiatives. Founded in 1999 after a break from the Argentine Communist Party over ideological differences, the MTL has its roots in Marxist-Leninist thought. Their work include b…
Organising enclaves under Black and Brown leadership in New York City
This Conversation with Imani Henry of Equality for Flatbush (E4F) offers a glimpse into the grassroots organizing and struggles in New York City, particularly in Brooklyn. The conversation delves into the formation and mission of E4F, a Black Lives Matter group established in 2013, which intertwines anti-gentrification efforts with a strong stance against police violence. The interview begins with the context of a recent solidarity action for the…
Latin American networking and cooperative struggles in Argentina
This conversation examines the Movimiento de Ocupantes e Inquilinos (MOI) in Argentina, a grassroots organization promoting cooperative, self-managed housing for over 30 years. Based on a conversation with Néstor Jeifetz, the article traces the origins of the MOI from the 1980s building occupations in Buenos Aires, through its connection to the broader Latin American cooperative housing movement, including the creation of the Latin American Secre…
Crisis of housing cooperatives in Mexico City
This article features a conversation with Luis Márquez Cruz and Fabiola Carrera from the Palo Alto Cooperative, delving into the history and ongoing struggles of one of Mexico City's oldest housing cooperatives. Formed in the 1980s based on principles of solidarity, mutual aid, and self-management, the cooperative provided affordable housing to working-class families. However, changes to cooperative laws in 1994 halted new cooperative projects an…
Not one neighbour less
This Conversation addresses the complexities of tenants displacement in Mexico City (CDMX), and examines the formation and evolution of the 06000 Plataforma Vecinal y Observatorio del Centro Histórico group and its strategies for organizing against eviction. It focuses on the iconic Edificio Trevi, detailing its history, and the community's resistance to eviction and "whiteninging by dispossession." The role of social action in fostering resistan…
Struggles of vehicle residents in Squamish
In this conversation, Thomasina Pidgeon discusses her decision to live in a vehicle in Squamish, north of Vancouver, in British Columbia, Canada. This was a choice originally driven by the lack of affordable housing, but she continued with it after falling in love with life on the road. Her story sheds light on the broader issues of housing, gentrification, and societal attitudes toward non-sedentary life choices. For Thomasina, living in a vehic…
Norita is the first of many self-managed community neighbourhoods to come
These two conversations with organizers and residents of Barrio Norita Cortiñas in Buenos Aires reflect the ongoing struggle for housing rights in Argentina. The discussions detail the development of the self-managed community, which emerged from land occupations in Guernica during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants highlight the collective efforts to secure land through self-organization and assembly-based decision-making, ultimately purcha…
From Quiet Life to Political Activism
The Red de Desalojados de la Ciudad de México is a group led by people affected by forced evictions, that has been resisting evictions and revealing ways in which different real estate groups, in collaboration with the authorities, prioritize economic interests over the rights of the inhabitants. In conversation with Rufina Galindo a member of the Network of Evicted in Mexico City, we talked about the effects of the earthquake on the living condi…
Here to Stay
The Flower Drive Tenants Association (La Asociación de inquilinos de Flower Drive) is an entire block of tenants organising against displacement in South Central Los Angeles. Members of the Los Angeles Tenants Union since March 2021, Flower Drive tenants have fought to stay put in the face of a multi-billion dollar development plan to replace hundreds of rent controlled apartments with luxury housing. In the process they have transformed their bl…
‘This house belongs to everyone’
The Otomí community, that migrated to Mexico City due to dire living conditions from their place of origin, has been demanding the right to housing, education, health, and work for over twenty years. However, they have continuously been denied dignified living conditions. On October 12, more then 150 people from the community took over the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), a government institution that has implemented development p…
From the politics of what's possible to the politics of what we want
In this conversation, organisers and base leaders Kenia Alcocer and Leonardo Vilchis from Union de Vecinos and the Los Angeles Tenants Union reflect on the struggle for housing in Los Angeles and beyon. They address issues such as the eviction moratorium, the necessity of providing full protection to tenants, the efforts of the growing tenant associations, building movement infrastructure, and scaling up the movement
Enforcing and disrupting circular movement in an EU Borderscape
This article examines Western Balkans/EU bordering and debordering practices through a borderscape method in the context of the geopolitical positionality and (de)institutionalization of migrant housing in Serbia. From this perspective, a new ‘border variation’ can be seen emerging after the securitarian turn, transforming the external borderscape of the EU into a space of circular movement. The article sheds light on discourses, practices and pl…
From anti-socialist urbanism to fostering paths for insurgent global urban futures
CHF-indexed housing debts in Serbia
The paper outlines the causes, unfolding and outcomes of the boom and bust of Swiss franc (CHF) loans in Serbia with a focus on their relation to class mobility in the setting of a transition to the market economy that transformed the methods of housing acquisition. This process resulted in an extreme housing precarity and declassing for segments of the post-Yugoslav middle and working classes, which has manifested in their dispossession of secur…
Becoming an accomplice in housing struggles on Vulturilor Street
Becoming an accomplice in housing struggles on Vulturilor Street
Enforcing and disrupting circular movement in an EU Borderscape
This article examines Western Balkans/EU bordering and debordering practices through a borderscape method in the context of the geopolitical positionality and (de)institutionalization of migrant housing in Serbia. From this perspective, a new ‘border variation’ can be seen emerging after the securitarian turn, transforming the external borderscape of the EU into a space of circular movement. The article sheds light on discourses, practices and pl…
How the Covid-19 pandemic has shaped housing struggles in Lebanon
In this conversation two of our Editors (Ana and Michele) are encountering researchers and organisers from Lebanon to reflect around the struggle for housing in the midst of the pandemic. They are Mona Fawaz, Mona Harb, Karim Nammour, Farah Salka. In this conversation, we tackle issues of new and old forms of housing injustices, housing policy, old and emerging inequalities, as well as forms of organising against the increasing housing violence
Solidarity as a temporary social infrastructure
During the pandemic, anti-eviction and food solidarity work continued to be an important self-organised, social and political, people-activist and radical infrastructure. Although the catastrophic effects of the so-called “funniest virus in history” in Serbia are gaining momentum, the state not only does not have mechanisms to weaken them but systematically hinders and criminalizes self-organized mutual aid efforts. The Roof, a self-organized ant…
State interventions, inequalities and people as infrastructure at times of Covid-19 in Lagos, Nigeria
In this conversation RHJ Editors Solange and Ana met with the Argentine researchers and organisers, Lucia Cavallero, Verónica Gago and Florencia Presta to learn about the increase in housing violence and struggles for housing and home in Argentina during the pandemic. They describe the intensification of ‘landlord violence’ and land seizures as well as an ‘implosion of home’ as a result of accelerated indebtedness and impoverishment. We tackle is…
Coping with fears
In this conversation, the Manila-based housing activist Michael Beltran discusses with our editors (Hung-Ying and Ana) how political oppressions intensified during the pandemic and melded with the ongoing eviction, food, and public health crises. Michael shares with us how the pandemic changed ways of grassroots organizing and enabled the government to seize political opportunities to increase political crackdown and expand infrastructural projec…
Housing struggles and domestic territories in Argentina during the pandemic
In this conversation RHJ Editors Solange and Ana met with the Argentine researchers and organisers, Lucia Cavallero, Verónica Gago and Florencia Presta to learn about the increase in housing violence and struggles for housing and home in Argentina during the pandemic. They describe the intensification of ‘landlord violence’ and land seizures as well as an ‘implosion of home’ as a result of accelerated indebtedness and impoverishment. We tackle is…
The Doomed Pursuit of Dignity
This paper discusses the role of artists engaged in live-work property guardian schemes and their potentials to act in a dignifying way at sites of struggle over the regeneration of council housing in London. To gain this understanding, I will describe how artists are embedded in this context by looking at the interaction between artists and property guardian enterprises working on housing estates in London. I will critically examine the artist r…
From Quiet Life to Political Activism
The Red de Desalojados de la Ciudad de México is a group led by people affected by forced evictions, that has been resisting evictions and revealing ways in which different real estate groups, in collaboration with the authorities, prioritize economic interests over the rights of the inhabitants. In conversation with Rufina Galindo a member of the Network of Evicted in Mexico City, we talked about the effects of the earthquake on the living condi…
Here to Stay
The Flower Drive Tenants Association (La Asociación de inquilinos de Flower Drive) is an entire block of tenants organising against displacement in South Central Los Angeles. Members of the Los Angeles Tenants Union since March 2021, Flower Drive tenants have fought to stay put in the face of a multi-billion dollar development plan to replace hundreds of rent controlled apartments with luxury housing. In the process they have transformed their bl…
‘This house belongs to everyone’
The Otomí community, that migrated to Mexico City due to dire living conditions from their place of origin, has been demanding the right to housing, education, health, and work for over twenty years. However, they have continuously been denied dignified living conditions. On October 12, more then 150 people from the community took over the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), a government institution that has implemented development p…
From the politics of what's possible to the politics of what we want
In this conversation, organisers and base leaders Kenia Alcocer and Leonardo Vilchis from Union de Vecinos and the Los Angeles Tenants Union reflect on the struggle for housing in Los Angeles and beyon. They address issues such as the eviction moratorium, the necessity of providing full protection to tenants, the efforts of the growing tenant associations, building movement infrastructure, and scaling up the movement
Food distribution as solidarity and as a tool for building tenant power in Los Angeles
In this conversation, Teresa Roman, Latina organizer and member of Accion Comunitaria and Los Angeles Tenant Union, shares her observations and analysis about the ongoing struggles in communities of Los Angeles. She discusses the use of food distribution as a means of building solidarity and tenant power, organizing against police harassment in migrant communities, and the role of women in tenant struggles
Weaving a Queer Space of Refuge, Resistance and Autonomy in Mexico City
La Comune Lencha-Trans is a unique women-only space that combines the functions of a home, a shelter, and a cultural center. It was established in January 2020 with the intention of hosting poetry events and serving as a public kitchen. In this conversation Miranda Amatista shares the history of the space, which is organized and led by a group of lesbian, trans, and queer women, deeply connected to other feminist, trans, prisoner-rights, women ve…
A fighting time and a dreaming time
In this conversation, Martha Escudero from the Reclaim our Homes is in dialogue with Ana Vilenica, sharing her experience of living in extreme housing precarity and her knowledge of tactics for occupying homes in LA, organizing against evictions and creating a community land trust. We also discussed the importance of learning from Indigenous movements across borders, and how they can inspire us to build different ways of organizing in our local c…
Life-Affirmative Struggles for Home Across Borders
Issue 5.1 of the Radical Housing Journal (RHJ) examines the current state of struggles for housing and home amidst capital-accumulation-induced urban restructuring worldwide. The authors discuss the enduring impact of settler colonialism on land and housing rights, particularly for Indigenous peoples. Feminist, queer, and trans perspectives are brought to the forefront, emphasizing the leadership roles played by marginalized communities in housin…
Against Whitening by Dispossession
In this conversation we delved into discussions with Pablo Gaytan Santiago, aka Hombre de Humo, urban sociologist, activist, and filmmaker about the historic tenets' strike organized by sex workers a century ago in Veracruz. We also explored the struggles for the right to housing and ongoing process of whitening and whitewashing in Mexico City. Our conversation encompassed Pablo's engagement with local communities as a documentary filmmaker and t…
CHF-indexed housing debts in Serbia
The paper outlines the causes, unfolding and outcomes of the boom and bust of Swiss franc (CHF) loans in Serbia with a focus on their relation to class mobility in the setting of a transition to the market economy that transformed the methods of housing acquisition. This process resulted in an extreme housing precarity and declassing for segments of the post-Yugoslav middle and working classes, which has manifested in their dispossession of secur…
Archiving the Housing Conjuncture
The past months have continued to exacerbate crises of housing, home, displacement, dispossession, and other state-sanctioned forms of violence and premature death. We witness erasure of histories, lives lived, belongings, and homes, which are intentional strategies to forcibly remove people from place and to make it seem as though they were never there. The authors thus document this conjunctural moment in radical housing struggles and collectiv…
Tracing a long history of the Habitat International Coalition and the social production of habitat
In "Tracing a Long History of International Habitat Coalition Making and Social Production of Housing," Ana Vilenica engages with Enrique Ortiz and Maria Silvia Emanuelli from HIC-AL to explore the evolution of housing justice movements and the role of the Habitat International Coalition (HIC) in advocating for social production of housing. The conversation provides a historical perspective on the coalition's inception. It outlines the foundation…
Dismantling rentier logic
In the conversation "Dismantling Rentier Logic: Tenants Struggles in Argentina," Ana Vilenica and Moisés Quiroz engage with Garvazio Munoz from Inquilinos Agrupados (IA), delving into Argentina's housing crisis and its effects on renters. Garvazio Munoz provides a historical perspective on tenant organising in Argentina, starting with Juana Rouco Buela's leadership in the 1907 tenants' strike against steep rent increases and the Movimiento de Inq…
Cooperativism as pedagogy
This conversation with Gustavo Machado discusses the role of cooperativism as a pedagogical process in Uruguay. Machado emphasizes how cooperatives serve as models for housing production and transformative social learning processes, embedding collective action and mutual aid into daily life. He distinguishes between housing, habitat, and inhabitation, advocating for a broader understanding of living that transcends physical structures and integra…
Housing as a battlefield
Since October 2023, we have witnessed the human and material devastation brought about by the horrific mediatised genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, itself preceded by a long history of ‘urbacide’—an intentional form of urban destruction characterised by siege and denied rehabilitation (Chiodelli 2022). In his research on modern warfare and ‘domicide’ in Syria (2022), Amar Azzouz has spoken eloquently about ‘...the millions of or…
Rent controls in comparative perspective
In Scotland, the policy landscape around rent controls is rapidly evolving and full of uncertainty. At this critical moment, an international symposium in Edinburgh brought together activists and academics in similar contexts living with or fighting for rent controls from across Europe and North America. This contribution is organised around reflections from the participants on (1) the history of rent controls in their area; (2) the current rent …
Accompanying popular organizations through grassroots planning in Argentina
In this conversation, Beatriz Pedro, a professor of El Taller Libre de Proyecto Social (TLPS) shares her insights on grassroots planning accompanying popular organizations in Argentina. Beginning with Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, Pedro describes how university students and professors mobilized to collaborate with popular organizations to address inadequate housing and urban abandonment. This collaboration evolved into a social approach to de…
Sociology (32 works) · Political science (28 works) · Law (21 works) · Conversation (17 works) · Politics (13 works) · Communication (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Political economy (10 works) · Art (9 works)