Lack of housing in Buenos Aires City: a critical sociodiscursive analysis of its causes and consequences

Abstract

Many of Buenos Aires City’s inhabitants undergo serious housing difficulties. During the 21st century these difficulties have become more and more complex, to the point that the City’s Legislature has systematically extended the state of housing emergency. In this context, the aim of this paper is to explain the deep causes and the social consequences involved in the housing issue, as it has a strong symbolic impact on the identities of those who undergo it. The theoretical frame for this work is Critical Discourse Analysis, its methodology is qualitative and the corpus consists of life histories and City’s Government speeches on the so-called “housing issue”.