MOVIMIENTOS SOCIOTERRITORIALES URBANOS EN URUGUAY: UNA APROXIMACIÓN EXPLORATORIA A PARTIR DE LA COMBINACIÓN DE MÉTODOS.

Abstract

This article explores urban social movements in Uruguay from the socioterritorial perspective proposed by Brazilian geographer Bernardo Mançano Fernandes. A multimethod approach is used, combining quantitative analysis of collective actions from April to September 2024 with the study of three cases: the homeless movement, the environmental movement, and the feminist movement. During the analyzed period, 159 collective actions were recorded, mainly led by neighborhood movements and trade unions. Their main strategies included communicative actions (letters, statements, interviews), as well as marches, rallies, and public performances. Key demands focused on public space, labor conditions, and socio-environmental issues. Case analysis showed that in the three social movements studied, both strategies and the formation of political identity and promoted values are shaped by territory. The homeless movement redefines public spaces as places of survival, confronting state logic. Feminism transforms urban space with symbolic changes, such as the renaming of streets and the creation of public spaces from a feminist perspective. The environmental movement fights for the protection of wetlands, developing public spaces that challenge prevailing urban logic, evidenced by the expansion of a new national highway. However, the processes of territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization present themselves as unfinished phenomena, where social movements dispute and conquer new territorialities, yet these are constantly threatened by dominant territorial production logics.