The New School Observatory on Latin America (OLA) and Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) are pleased to present, in this 7th consecutive year of the President Néstor Kirchner Fellowship, the 2017-2018 Fellows: Paulo Alas Rossi and María Sofía Bernat, who were awarded this Fellowship after demonstrating academic excellence and a commitment to public service.

‘Peripheralization’ in the Brazilian Federal Social Housing Program

by Paulo Alas Rossi

Mr. Rossi’s research critically analyzes the “My House, My Life” program, the major social housing program in progress in Latin America. This work focuses on the program’s site-selection process by adding a social dimension to an otherwise technical approach. Rossi further explores the interdependence between different actors and their uneven power structures.

The Relocation of the Slum of Ringuelet, Buenos Aires, and the Emergence of Modes of Organization

by María Sofía Bernat

Ms. Bernat analyzes the participation and the modes of organization of the inhabitants of the Ringuelet slum in La Plata, Argentina, from a qualitative and ethnographic perspective, during a relocation process advanced by the government after flooding in April of 2013. She explores the ways in which socio-urban transformations modify the understanding of sense structures as well as ways of inhabiting a territory.