The square as a dispute for the city. Memory, territory, and human rights in the founding of Susana Valor Square (Tandil, Argentina)

Abstract

This article examines the processes of territorializing social memory through a case study of the founding of Susana Valor Square in Tandil, Argentina. Employing a qualitative methodology that integrates spatial analysis, archival research, and oral history, it analyzes how the square's physical establishment in the neighborhood space serves as a vehicle for memory, connecting historical struggles with contemporary demands for housing rights and the right to the city. The findings demonstrate how this territorial marker functioned as a strategy for contesting urban memory and redefining public space, decentralizing official commemorations while expanding human rights frameworks to encompass social and urban rights. The study concludes that Susana Valor Square represents a memory-territory where past and present struggles converge, revealing social movements' capacity to produce alternative geographies that transform marginalized urban spaces into places imbued with historical significance and political agency, where memory becomes both a future-oriented project and an instrument for urban contestation.