1In Latin America, the production of popular housing has historically been dominated by informal modes of production, which do not respect the urban or property norms established by the State. In Colombian cities, a significant proportion of the working classes benefited from public housing programs until the 1980s, but access to land was mainly the result of illegal development - particularly before the 1960s - and illegal land occupations (Rueda et al., 2006). In recent years, the supply of social housing has remained quantitatively insufficient or inaccessible due to savings conditions and access to credit beyond the reach of poor households. Today, as before, informal urban production channels are the main access to housing for the working classes. However, these channels are changing and diversifying. Particularly since the early 2000s, authors have been highlighting the consolidation of precarious neighborhoods, which are seeing a growing share of housing produced by verticalization rather than land-use conversion (Abramo, 2012). In relatively old neighborhoods, we are thus witnessing the consolidation of an informal real estate market (Ribardière and Valette, 2017), with land and real estate supply marked by the development of rental (Abramo, 2019).
2Alongside these recompositions from below, public action in precarious neighborhoods is being renewed. From the 1990s onwards, repressive policies aimed at eradicating precarious neighborhoods were gradually phased out in Latin America. The neoliberal paradigm, supported in particular by the World Bank, saw self-building as a more effective housing solution than direct state intervention, and encouraged the regularization of precarious neighborhoods (Clerc and Deboulet, 2018; Dureau, Gouëst and Mesclier, 2006). Several municipalities then enacted policies to integrate the urban margins: regularization of urban services, legalization of property ownership, transport infrastructures... These integration policies open up new opportunities for capital accumulation for public authorities and the private economic sector, through the acquisition of symbolic capital via city-branding strategies or direct investment made possible by the regularization of land tenure (Rekow, 2016).
3Internationally, many authors identify the process of accumulation through dispossession as a key mechanism of neoliberal urban production and transformation of popular housing (Gillespie, 2016; Harvey, 2003). This literature focuses above all on the role of the state, architect-urban planners and private developers in the eviction of the working classes, and discusses the dynamics of gentrification and displacement engendered by major development projects and policies to integrate precarious neighborhoods (Freeman and Burgos, 2017). The violent production of urban space is then essentially questioned through the formalization processes of precarious housing neighborhoods. Yet the dynamics of violent accumulation (dispossession, displacement) and the commodification of popular living spaces are not confined to urban renewal or integration policies, and include actors acting outside formal circuits. The aim of this contribution is to shed light on the forms of violence that permeate the informal circuits of urban production, in a context where these remain the main route to housing for the working classes.
4In Colombia, a large proportion of informal housing production today involves the verticalization of buildings, but the housing resulting from this verticalization mainly feeds the rental market (Abramo, 2012). The informal land market remains dynamic, as it is the major path to home "ownership" for the working classes, and for the most vulnerable, the only way out of a rental market that is hard to sustain. From major real estate developers to the most modest households, marginal land is thus an object of covetousness and the support of valuation strategies that unfold on different scales (É. Denis, 2016). In the contexts of criminal territorial control that characterize certain Latin American cities, illegal armed groups may see it as an attractive financial windfall and are increasingly investing in these markets (in Colombia see: Müller, 2021; in Brazil see: Hirata et al., 2022). This is the case in Medellín, Colombia's second-largest city (population 2.6 million), where these actors have systematized their control over the informal land market, making the illegal sale of land a new segment of the criminal economy.
5While the binarity of the oppositions between legal/illegal and formal/informal is constantly being called into question, if only on the scale of practices due to the oscillations of the actors themselves (Inverses et al., 2016; Bennafla, 2014; Mcfarlane, 2012), it nevertheless remains possible to distinguish two channels of access to land, formal and informal, the second being defined by non-compliance with state norms and characterized by land insecurity. This informal commodification of land not only concerns precarious neighborhoods, but also extends to regularized neighborhoods or those resulting from legal social production. In such cases, it operates through the densification of plots without building permits or the owner's consent. In the light of the capture of the informal land market by criminal organizations in Medellín, we look at the redefinition of modes of access to popular housing. What are the consequences of criminal groups' control of the land market on access to land and the land rights of residents? In a context where the state and armed groups both position themselves as the "authorizing authority" (Lund, 2006), we analyze how rights are distributed, legitimized, or contested at the local level, highlighting the regime of accumulation in which urban production operates.
Fig. 1: Urban poverty and precariousness in Medellin
Methodology
The data used for this study stems from three research fieldworks of four, three and six months respectively, carried out in Medellín between 2021 and 2023, and is divided into two main corpuses collected using qualitative methods. The first corpus is the result of ethnographic observation carried out in three precarious Medellín neighborhoods, where we were able to take part in various community initiatives around the issue of housing. For example, in a western sector of Medellín, we became involved in the struggle to regularize the neighborhood and made multi-weekly visits for five months, attending meetings and taking part in the actions implemented (community census of the population, diagnosis of vulnerability to risk...). This prolonged presence made it possible to carry out numerous interviews with residents in order to capture their residential trajectories (48 such interviews carried out in 2023). In addition, free or semi-directive interviews and commented itineraries collected from residents and social leaders, concerning the history of the district and the dynamics of urbanization, served as a contextualization tool. However, due to the sensitive nature of the information, less formal methods were used to deal more specifically with the theme of criminal control. During periods of participant observation, we sought to create topics of conversation to investigate three aspects: the chronology of the armed group's involvement in the land market, the modalities of land appropriation and sales, and any forms of violence associated with this activity.
The second set of data was collected during a six-month internship within the Medellín Security Secretariat, one of the municipal bodies responsible for urban control. This internship provided access to the administration's literature and official databases. On the other hand, between February and July 2023, semi-directive interviews with 32 officials - some operating in the field and others occupying positions of high responsibility - enabled us to acquire a precise view of irregular urbanization on a city-wide scale, to compile the administration's knowledge of criminal control of the land market, and to document the practices of official actors in urban control.
Data from the ethnography and institutional interviews were cross-checked and triangulated with available press articles and institutional reports, as well as six interviews with researchers and investigative journalists.
6Our analysis is structured in three parts. Considering the political and economic changes that Medellín has undergone in recent decades, the first part examines the emergence of criminal control of urban production, highlighting the new dimension of this land control. This criminal control is at the root of a recomposition of the land tenure system, analyzed in the second section, which can be seen in the disruption of existing property norms and the redefinition of residents' land rights. These observations lead us to introduce the concept of predatory accumulation as a key to analyzing these transformations.
7Finally, the third part explores the way in which selective state action on the urban margins co-produces land regime, through the contestation or recognition of rights granted by armed groups.
8The involvement of armed non-state actors in the land market has been documented in a variety of geographical and historical contexts (for example, in Mumbai, see Weinstein, 2008; in Karachi, see Gayer, 2014). Land control is a tool and an expression of the territorial control exercised by these organizations, in addition to the various functions they can perform: protection and security; conflict resolution; granting of credit, etc. In Medellín, the driving role of armed actors in irregular urbanization is notably documented in comuna 13 (see figure 1) during the 1990s. At the time, this district was a guerrilla stronghold, which supported and initiated land occupations. The National Liberation Army (ELN) and the April 19th Movement (M-19) enabled the settlement of displaced families, graciously providing them with land and basic building materials (Sánchez, Villa and Riaño, 2011). The presence of the guerrillas also prevented the intrusion of the law enforcement officers and the demolition of the homes. These occupations thus had a dual political objective: at the same time as they materialized the guerrillas' social demands (right to housing), they helped these movements strengthen and even extend their territorial base. Paramilitary groups also took part in these processes, following their incursion into the city in the late 1990s. They shared with their militia and guerrilla adversaries a desire to build up a social base. Indeed, the provision of a plot of land to a family comes with a form of political reciprocity. These processes of land allocation were central to the construction of paramilitary authority in Bogotá's southern periphery (Escobar Moyano, 2018). In its paternalistic aspect, the consolidation of non-state authority relies on the ability of armed groups to respond to and instrumentalize the structural problems of marginalized populations, such as access to urban land, insecurity, and lack of employment prospects(ibidem). The clientelist logic widely documented in informal urbanization processes here reinforced the political capital of armed actors.
9The involvement of armed groups in informal urban production in Medellín is therefore nothing new. Ever since they established their presence in marginalized neighborhoods, these actors have had varying degrees of control over the urban fabric: allocation of land, authorization to settle, participation in the construction of housing... In the past, land was often ceded for free or for a token sum. Although the political and economic motivations of non-state armed groups are often intertwined, the situations described at the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s show that land control was essentially motivated by securing a social base and obtaining strategic advances in a context of urban guerrilla warfare. Today, the level of prices set and the development of various violent and predatory practices by armed groups attest to the lucrative purpose of land control. Alongside drug micro-trafficking and other more or less legal businesses, the land market has become a new sector of the criminal economy.
10This situation does not account for all the configurations where organized violence and land markets intersect. In other contexts, authors have pointed to the existence of land mafias or "coercive rentier networks" (Levien, 2021), which mobilize illegal armed organizations as a coercive force in the service of irregular developers. However, these configurations differ from our subject of study in several respects. Firstly, the armed groups in Medellín do not act as the mere armed wing of a third party, but ensure and direct illegal land sales on their own behalf. Secondly, unlike land mafias, these groups have a solid territorial base, and each operates within a delimited, tacitly identified space, within which it exercises strong social control. Beyond being "violence entrepreneurs" capable of converting organized violence into influence and wealth (Volkov, 2016), armed groups on the urban margins of Medellín embody what Christian Lund refers to as twilight institutions: de facto public authorities attempting to define and enforce collectively binding decisions and rules (Lund, 2006).
- 1 Interviews with municipal police inspectors deployed in each district enabled us to identify 66 ac (...)
11In Colombia's second-largest city, the incursion of illegal groups into the land market dates from around ten years ago. It is part of an economic diversification strategy that began in the 2000s. At that time, the fragmentation of the different nodes in the drug trafficking chain resulted in the emergence of independent networks of financially self-sufficient organizations, which were required to secure their own funding (McDermott, 2014). This was coupled with declining revenues from narcotrafficking, as Colombian organizations lost control of export routes to the US to Mexican cartels. The search for financial autonomy and the need to offset diminishing income drove the expansion into other business sectors. In urban areas, the widespread use of extortion, the formation of monopolies in the trade of everyday consumer goods (gas bottles or eggs, for example; see Giraldo Ramírez, Rendón Cardoan and Ducan Cruz, 2014) or the illegal sale of land are the different faces of this diversification. The deliberate integration of land sales into the criminal economy has resulted in armed groups gaining widespread influence over the urban land market. The scale of this influence indicates a profound change in the nature of the historical occasional forms of illicit involvement in urban production. Based on a census of irregular urbanization zones, our survey among urban control authorities established that armed groups control at least 90% of the informal land market in Medellín1. In other words, they now regulate almost all informal urban production (excluding verticalization).
12The scale of these criminal organizations can vary. Since the early 2000s, paramilitary groups have enjoyed hegemony over the city. This relative political homogeneity of the armed groups ensures a high level of coordination of criminal activities, limits confrontations between rival gangs and is directly correlated with the fall in violence rates observed over the last twenty years. While the record homicide rates that put Medellín at the top of the world rankings seem a distant memory, the hold of illegal armed groups over the city has not waned. Popular neighborhoods remain under the territorial control of these actors, who deploy a variety of economic activities and social control mechanisms. However, criminal governance has been pacified. Illegal groups now maintain agreements and ensure their domination over the population through more discreet forms of violence, such as forced displacement (Cruz and Durán-Martínez, 2016).
13Today, a single structure, La Oficina, brings together most of the city's criminal organizations and controls almost all of Medellín (Blattman et al., 2020; interview with investigative journalist, Analisis Urbano, 03/2023). Although united under the same umbrella, these organizations remain highly numerous. The number of active groups at micro-territorial level is estimated at 350 (ibid.). These groups at the bottom of the criminal hierarchy, known as combos, are made up of one or two dozen people, and exercise their control on the scale of a neighborhood or a few streets. They are subordinate to one of the fifteen bandas (higher-level organizations) present in the city, themselves federated –for the most part– within La Oficina. Depending on the territory, the land market is organized at combo or banda level.
- 2 "Private" here does not refer to the legal status of the land, often owned without title, but to t (...)
14In his seminal work, P. Abramo distinguishes two major informal land sub-markets in Latin America, based on various economic variables characterizing supply and demand: power of economic agents, information holding –asymmetry or transparency–, product characteristics –homogeneous or heterogeneous–, externalities, rationality of agents etc. He thus distinguishes the sub-market of the allotment (loteo), with an oligopolistic structure shared between a few irregular promoters –armed groups in our case–, and the sub-market of consolidated areas (asentamientos consolidados) characterized by a competitive offer between multiple small owners (Abramo, 2008). In Medellín, armed groups' systematic control of land has led to a structural homogenization of these sub-markets. Indeed, in the context of urban densification associated with the consolidated zone market, armed groups typically first seize and sell plots that are vacant, unclaimed, and unused. However, as available land diminishes, they inevitably target private land2 or common spaces (stadiums, children's playgrounds, community gardens, etc.). Expropriation thus becomes a common way of supplying land to the informal market. Whether the land is vacant, communal, or private, the ability of illegal actors to mobilize violence enables them to capture interstitial land opportunities, and to hold authority over the definition of land uses, a decisive element in their economic valorization. As this strategy of land capture extends to private land, the formation of an oligopolistic structure –made up of the various armed groups on a city-wide scale– can also be observed in consolidated urban areas.
15To secure a monopoly on the land market in their territory, illegal organizations intimidate residents who refuse to abide by their rules. People who buy or sell land other than that offered by the armed groups are subjected to violent pressure, up to and including forced displacement. Since 2014, the first year recorded by the Information System of the Security Secretariat (SISC), the proportion of forced displacements linked to the dispossession of a property has more than doubled (see figure 2).
Fig. 2: Increasing forced displacement due to dispossession
Production : Keisha Corantin
Source : Medellín Security Secretariat's Information System (SISC), 2023
16When a household buys a land plot (or a house) to move into without the buyer or seller having asked permission from the armed group, both are extorted into paying a permit or are threatened with eviction. The annual report on human rights by the Personería de Medellín -public human rights institution - published in 2021 (Personería Medellín, 2021), warns of the increase in this cause of forced displacement. It describes certain forms of violence used against people who purchase property without the mediation of the armed group:
The forms of intimidation range from attacking the residence with stones for several hours several times a week, or by shooting at it; to the intrusion of "muchachos" [literally "the gentlemen" - a colloquial name for members of the armed group] into homes to destroy furniture and personal effects; to the prohibition of visits or the payment of "tolls" and the blocking of the entrance to the house with piles of wood and rubble, among others. The situation is progressive, concurrent, and delicate, so much so that in the end, in the midst of confrontations, the people occupying the house are forced to abandon it, leave the neighborhood, and are persuaded not to return.
- 3 First name details have been changed.
17People who refuse to comply with the rules are therefore forcibly displaced. In addition to using forced displacement as a tool of land control, some organizations have made it the core of their business model (Alcaldía de Medellín, 2022). As I walk with Beatriz3 in her neighborhood on the eastern slopes of Medellín, she recounts:
A man had begun to settle there. He had bought the plot for 18 million pesos. He had started to bring in the building materials, but the muchachos chased him away, without anyone knowing why. Can you believe it? 18 million lost... Later, they sold it to someone else (Beatriz, 04/2022).
18The plot is then resold once, twice, or even three times, multiplying the profit cycles and the gains made by the armed group. Beatriz, 52, has lived in the area for almost 15 years. Currently a tenant, she is trying to save money to buy a plot of land, but fears having to deal with the local gang. In addition to forced displacement, other groups multiply their profits by overselling and sell the same plot of land to several people, then leaving the various buyers to fend for themselves (interview with journalist, El Colombiano, 01/2022; Dutheil, 2016).
19The violence does not only affect buyers who fall victim to these predatory strategies, or those who trade outside the boundaries set by the criminal organization. People who own a free piece of land - for use as a terrace, garden, or left fallow - with no intention of selling it, also come under pressure from the armed group. " If you don't have the money to build, let someone else do it ", is how a resident protesting against the expropriation of her piece of garden was told by a member of the local gang (interview with a police inspector from the central-eastern zone, 03/2023). To avoid expropriation, residents are forced to build. Others find themselves obliged to buy back land from the armed group, despite having occupied it for more than a decade. Sergio, a resident of a precarious neighborhood in the north-western zone, had to pay 5 million pesos (equivalent to 4 minimum salaries) so that his land would not be sold to someone else (interview with Sergio, 04/2023). In some neighborhoods, others suffer a double penalty: forced to build in order to keep their land, the armed group extorts money from them as payment for buying the land or granting construction approval. In a consolidated neighborhood in the north of Medellín, a police inspector relates the story of a family who had lived there for three generations and had a 60m² garden where they grew fruit trees. One day, members of the armed group came to warn them that unless they built on the plot, they would have to give it up. The family went ahead with construction, only to be asked to pay 6 million pesos for the right to build. This case is just one of many similar testimonies gathered by the inspector (interview with an inspector from the north-western zone, 06/2023). Throughout the city, the repeated infringements of residents' land rights lead us to analyze these practices under the prism of an evolution in land tenure, imposed by force and violence.
20The central role acquired by armed groups in urban production not only disrupts land value-creation mechanisms, but also transforms the ownership relationships that are commonly established between a buyer and his property after the transaction. In Colombian cities, where there is no system of social or community ownership, these relationships are well understood in terms of private property. Independently of any official recognition, the social group recognizes the occupier of a plot of land as having specific, and exclusive rights over it.
21According to the sociology of law, private property essentially encompasses three faculties: the right to possess, to enjoy and to dispose of (Mora Gamboa, 2021). Through the right to possess, the owner can freely use his property. In the case of land intended for residential purpose, the owner has the right to build a house, to live in it, to carry out work on it, etc... Enjoyment, on the other hand, refers to the owner's right to appropriate the fruits of his property. The owner can, for example, benefit from the harvests of his cultivated land, or rent out his property and collect the rent. Finally, the disposition refers to the right to alienate the property: to destroy it, to sell it, to mortgage it, or to carry out any other action entailing for the owner the loss of all or part of his property.
22The capture of the market by armed groups calls this property regime into question, and implies thinking about the evolution of land control regimes, which N. Peluso and C. Lund define as "practices that fix or consolidate certain forms of land access, claim and exclusion" (Peluso and Lund, 2011). In fact, dealing with the armed group does not grant the buyer any exclusive and absolute rights over their property, as the armed group retains authority over the land even after the sale. While the buyer can directly use the property, any exercise of their rights to use, enjoy, or dispose of it must be sanctioned by the armed group through payment. The armed group may also impose regulations on the property's use. In this way, the armed group's land control leads to the fragmentation of the property into bundles of rights, which are later transferred to the buyer in return for payment. The division of property into bundles of rights allows armed groups to multiply sources and times of profit.
Fig. 3: The fragmentation of private property into bundles of rights
Production : Keisha Corantin
23In practical terms, when a person buys land from an armed group - the questioning of ownership calls into question the relevance of the term " buy " - this initial transaction does not transfer ownership, but only the right to access and live on the land. When this person starts building, he or she will have to pay a new sum of money to the armed group, equivalent to a permission to build. In addition, the armed group can set rules for the conduct of its construction work. In an eastern district of the city, groups set construction deadlines, impose hard-wall construction, and even dictate where materials are purchased:
When you buy a plot of land, the muchachos tell you where to buy the materials and give you one or two weeks to build. If you don't meet the deadline, they sell the land to someone else. (interview with Beatriz, resident of the north-eastern zone, 04/2022).
24Regarding the right to enjoy, owners may be obliged to pay the armed group part of the rent they receive (El Colombiano, 2023). Finally, as the previous section showed, a person is not free to sell his or her property without permission and prior payment:
Selling implies being able to give back the money you spent buying the land. Let's say I bought the land for 3 million pesos. To sell it, I must give that amount of money back. To be able to leave with peace of mind, so to speak ... (interview with Yulisa, resident of the north-western zone, 06/2023).
- 4 The extension of illicit credit invites future research to consider the forms of captivity develop (...)
25The new access route to housing opened up by armed groups also contributes to the expansion of illicit credit circuits. Many households need to borrow to cover the costs of settling in (price of land and building materials). Working-class households, most of whom have no access to bank credit, have three other options: financial support from relatives, a community credit union, or credit from the armed group. In the latter case, the high interest rates charged can be a major source of additional income for the criminal organizations. The link between criminal structures and short-term illegal creditors, known in Colombia as "gota a gota" [drop-by-drop], is well documented (Austin, 2023). These lenders grant small sums to be repaid within a few weeks, with an interest rate of 20%. The credits granted by armed groups in connection with their land control are different. They involve larger sums, are longer-term, and are contracted directly with the recipient of the expense. In the case of the purchase of land or building materials in a store under criminal control, the credit takes the form of a staggered payment, with interest, to be paid to the armed group. In a western district of Medellín, our interviews with residents reveal that an interest rate of 20% is applied, similar to that of " gota a gota " loans (interviews with William, 07/2023; Luisa, 07/2023). Due to the high interest rate, this solution is often a default choice. Those who turn to this option are therefore the most vulnerable, lacking family or community solidarity networks. Thus, the investment of armed groups in urban production opens up new fronts for expansion into new markets: long-term credit4 and the sale of building materials are notable examples.
26While armed groups' control over the land market is systematic, the occurrence of these practices varies according to the areas and strategies adopted by each criminal organization. For instance, overselling is an occasional practice, while expropriation and the payment of building fees appear to be widespread. These patterns allow us to theorize the emergence of a new mode of urban production.
- 5 The concept coined by David Harvey takes up Marx's notion of primitive accumulation (Marx, 1867 an (...)
27Traditionally, three modes of informal urban production can be identified: land occupations, irregular development, and the informal real estate market (Abramo, 2012). The processes of access to land in the popular districts of Medellín reveal a mode of urban production based on violence and profoundly predatory social relations, thus distinguishing itself from classically identified forms of urban production. Two essential transformations compel us to introduce the concept of predatory accumulation as a new framework for urban production. Firstly, the valorization of land –its provision on the market and its allocation for residential purposes– relies on violence and entails systematic recourse to expropriation. In Medellín, accumulation through dispossession (Harvey, 2003)5 has thus become a cornerstone of informal urban production. Secondly, the prolonged control exercised by armed groups over the land they cede (see figure 3) alters the land regime of private property that has hitherto prevailed in low-income neighborhoods. While dispossession can easily be seen in the violent mechanisms of land appropriation, the transformation of social relations of ownership must also be analyzed as such. By weakening ownership, armed groups dispossess residents of rights they could previously legitimately claim.
- 6 According to Marx, the lumpenproletariat refers to the impoverished and declassed population, soci (...)
- 7 For this perspective on the question of housing, see, for example, the work on the "business of po (...)
28In his work on the American inner-city, anthropologist Philippe Bourgois advances the concept of "predatory accumulation" to describe economies that thrive on the ruin of marginalized populations (Bourgois, 2018). Rooted in Marxist theory, the notion describes the integration of the lumpenproletariat6 into the capitalist economy via markets that feed this lumpenization of the population, and are administered through violence rather than "market forces" (the author discusses the drug economy and prison industry, for example). If we broaden the social spectrum studied by Bourgois - the lumpenproletariat - the predatory logic he traces refers more broadly to an accumulation stemming from a process of exploitation and reproduction of social marginality. These reflections are in line with work on the "poverty industries"7, which refer to the various forms of profit made through and at the expense of vulnerable populations.
- 8 In one of our research areas, a survey of 177 households revealed that 50% had bought land in the (...)
29Building on these reflections, we propose a new understanding of predatory accumulation, which we believe characterizes the mode of urban production introduced by illicit control of the land market. Our definition is based on two elements: the centrality of violent expropriation in the creation of capital, and the grounding of profit in the exploitation and reproduction of precariousness. These two elements are reflected in the dynamics observed in Medellín. Indeed, the appropriation and commodification of land are ensured through violence. This violence also regulates the market, for example, by guaranteeing the armed group's monopoly or punishing non-payment. Secondly, the market administered by armed groups is based on exploiting popular demand from people excluded from formal housing offers and sometimes unable to remain in the rental market8. Finally, in addition to capitalizing on this vulnerability, the profitability of the activity is built precisely on the weakening of informal land rights, which are fragmented and subject to various payment deadlines. The fragmentation of land rights directly results in insecurity of ownership for the inhabitants: not only are their prerogatives over land reduced, but they are also subject –on numerous occasions– to the will of the armed group, increasing their exposure to possible violence. In this way, predatory accumulation not only exploits the vulnerability of the lower classes, but also aggravates land insecurity by making the fragmentation of land rights a driver for accumulation. The notion of predation also assumes a totalizing dimension, apt to describe the dynamics of commodification of the smallest interstice in Medellín's popular neighborhoods.
30In Political Science, work on urban gangs mobilizes the notion of predation to designate forms of intestine criminality, in which gangs undertake criminal actions against the population of their own territory (Ramírez, 2018). Other authors refer to the same phenomenon as "extractive gangs" (Blattman et al., 2021). While characterizing a mode of urban production, the concept of predatory accumulation also makes it possible to think about the recent reconfigurations of criminal economies and the relationships that armed groups maintain with the population. In the context of an exponential increase in extortion since 2005 (Jaramillo and Gil, 2014) and the multiplication of trafficking based on the everyday consumption of local populations (Giraldo Ramírez, Rendón Cardoan and Ducan Cruz, 2014), predation conceived as a particular organizing form of the illicit economy questions these transformations.
31Land predation not only affects the property of the inhabitants of popular neighborhoods, but also leads to the appropriation of many State properties, with the State owning most of the remaining large plots of unbuilt land coveted by armed groups. In addition to depriving the State of its assets, criminal land control and the resulting land sales are carried out in disregard of official property and land-use norms. But despite the lack of state control, Medellín's popular neighborhoods cannot be considered "without" or "outside" the state. They are better described as spaces of fragmented sovereignty where different authorities coexist (Davis, 2016). Through its direct action, but also through its lack of action, the state participates in the co-production of precarious neighborhoods and the definition of land regime.
32Produced in contradiction to official norms, the informal land market has a fundamentally transgressive relationship with public order. In almost all cases, the land sold by armed groups is publicly owned or falls into the "public space" category of land use, giving the administration direct authority to intervene. Throughout the city, municipal police inspectors are the guarantors of public order and urban integrity. Their administrative practice therefore sheds light on how the state deals with irregular urbanization. As explained in the first section, the urbanization of land regularly involves the violent expropriation of private property, prompting some victims to seek assistance from the State in the expectation of safeguarding their assets. Because of the risk of reprisals (forced displacement, or even assassination), victims do not formally denounce the armed group, but rather seek to obtain the demolition of constructions endorsed by the illegal actors. The State's attitude towards these conflicts reflects the interweaving of three forms of claims over land in precarious neighborhoods: the unofficial land rights claimed by individuals on one hand; those seized and granted by armed groups on the other hand; and finally, the legality upheld by the State.
33Indeed, one inspector told us that he had been approached by a resident who denounced the expropriation of her garden, as a neighbor had begun to build a house on her plot. When she protested, the armed group threatened her and ruled in favor of the neighbor. The dispossession was thus sanctioned by the armed group, which had certainly –as is customary– granted the land to the neighbor in return for payment. Lacking a title legalizing her rights to the land she was claiming, the complainant saw her complaint rejected by the inspector:
I told her: “You'd like me to protect you, but I only protect the owners. I won't protect you, because you're just an occupier. There's no way to protect you legally” (interview with an inspector from the central-eastern zone, 03/2023).
34As the inspector did not recognize the complainant's right to the land, he denied her any means of appeal. Faced with a similar situation involving a complainant who had no title deeds, another inspector decided to order the demolition of both the new construction and the complainant's house:
A man came to complain that people had invaded his land. The reality is that 40 years ago, this gentleman appropriated a piece of land on the riverbank, and recently, someone else arrived to build on it. What protection does he expect if he himself has invaded undue space? (interview with an inspector from the north-eastern zone, 04/2023).
35The positions taken here by the inspectors testify to the fact that the state has its own system of norms, challenging both the claims of people who have recently bought land from armed groups, and those of former inhabitants without title.
36However, the strength of the protest and the denial of any form of recognition to irregular constructions is not uniform across the city, and largely depends on the political visibility of each space. The city of Medellín is internationally recognized as a best-practice model for its urban policy of integrating the margins through infrastructure (Servières, 2022). Labelled "social urbanism", this policy consisted of targeted, comprehensive interventions in areas traditionally neglected by public authorities. This singular urban history makes precarious neighborhoods a major legitimacy issue for the municipality, which has built its internationalization strategy around the story of their reconquest. Efforts to combat irregular construction thus vary greatly from one area to another. Indeed, although irregular urbanization spreads throughout the city, two of the three priority sectors identified by the Secretariat of Territorial Management and Control (SGCT) correspond to "showcase" locations for social urbanism: the garden in the central district of Moravia and the large promenade of Jardín Circunvalar on the eastern heights of Medellín (interview with an SGCT official, 03/23). Developed in the heart of or on the edge of precarious neighborhoods, these tourist-oriented sites were the city's flagship for the requalification of areas marginalized by green infrastructure. The third priority area identified by the administration is the western sector of Vallejuelos. Although not an icon of social urbanism, this area does enjoy a certain political visibility, as an employee of the Secretariat of Security explained to us:
In the corridors of the administration, everyone says that the demolition plan for the Vallejuelos district came about because they started building on the edge of the Via Occidente. This is a very important road, as it is regularly used by the wealthiest people to reach their properties to the west of the city... So, of course, what was happening was very visible. (interview with an agent from the Security Secretariat, 05/2023).
37Another official added that the mayor received numerous complaints by mail and was publicly questioned on the subject (interview with a SGCT official, 06/23).
- 9 8 million people in the country are recognized as victims of armed conflict. These people are over (...)
38Increased patrols, systematic issuing of demolition orders, coordination of large-scale eviction operations... certain sectors therefore focus the administration's efforts. In these politically significant areas, the state openly contests the legitimacy of constructions arising from the illegal market. Buyers find themselves exposed to repression by the public authorities, who have one main instrument at their disposal: demolition. Immediate demolitions - during construction or in the first 48 hours of occupation - are punctual and concentrated at the start of the urbanization process. Indeed, when too many constructions escape the statutory 48 hours and the situation is deemed to be out of control, the demolition brigades stop intervening. Administrative demolitions, which are the result of a much longer procedure, are systematically ordered, but their execution is hampered by the municipality's inability to meet the shelter requirements laid down by the Constitutional Court. A 2021 jurisprudence (ruling SU-016 of 2021) tightened eviction conditions and granted special protection measures to victims of armed conflict, a population over-represented in precarious neighborhoods.9 The public authorities are thus obliged to help them find a stable housing solution and to guarantee temporary accommodation for a period of seven months. Lacking the necessary resources to meet these requirements, the municipality sees evictions paralyzed.
39Demolitions, whether carried out or not, are a symbolic de-legitimization of the rights granted by armed groups with little impact on their business. They do, however, have tangible consequences for the daily lives of the inhabitants. Their execution –an immediate procedure– increases the cost of settling on the plot (purchase of materials), while their announcement reinforces land tenure insecurity, rules out any prospect of regularization and cuts residents off from institutional interlocutors in the event of land-related violence. Without weakening illegal trade, administrative repression directed against residents produces territories excluded from ordinary citizenship, spaces without rights, leaving the field open to regulation by armed groups (Grajales, 2016). State practices fixing precarious neighborhoods and their inhabitants as outside the law thus participate in a regime of exclusion that co-produces the interstices of power from which armed actors enrich themselves and consolidate their authority.
40Despite the ambition of a uniform, city-wide policy for the demolition of irregular constructions, the administration's lack of resources and the pragmatic arbitrations of field agents determine spatially selective repressive practices. In areas where irregular urbanization ostensibly affects the credibility of the State, municipal police inspectors receive strict instructions from their superiors to order the demolition of any new irregular construction. But in areas that escape this political pressure, they enjoy greater latitude.
41When it comes to minor troubles –neighbor disputes, irregular construction– Medellín's municipal police are the first and often only state figures to whom residents of popular neighborhoods have access. At the interface between citizens and the state, police inspectors embody the state in a tangible way (Grassin, 2019) and invite us to read the plurality of the state on an infra-institutional scale, through the procedures and performances of those who give it substance (Debos, 2013). In fact, inspectors control the legal qualification of facts and have a wide margin of maneuver to do so, as cases are rarely raised before a judge. Each inspector can therefore act differently. Faced with a situation of dispossession similar to those described above (3.1.), where other inspectors had either dismissed the complaint or prosecuted both the complainant and the accused, a third inspector told us that he had taken legal action only against the person responsible for the new construction. From a legal point of view, the proceedings were brought for urban infraction, not for disturbance of possession. The inspector therefore did not formally recognize the possession of the affected resident, but nevertheless acted in his interest, giving credence to the anteriority of his occupation and believing his rights to be consolidated by time.
42The tokens of recognition granted by some inspectors are not limited to old occupations. In addition to complaints about dispossession, irregular constructions can lead to other conflicts, particularly when they cause damage to a neighboring house. Guided by pragmatism rather than legality, some inspectors choose to ignore the irregular nature of the construction, and concentrate on the damage caused:
The complaint may have been filled for illegal construction, but I later realize that the complainant is bothered by the dampness caused by the building of the neighboring house. I know that if I apply article 135 [urban infraction], enforcement of the demolition is uncertain and the fine I can impose will not solve the humidity problem. I therefore prefer to open proceedings for "damage caused by a real property", and try to resolve the problem by conciliation between the two parties. The urban infraction may be obvious, but I know that if I handle it that way, there won't be a solution. (interview with an inspector from the central-eastern zone, 05/2023).
43The paralysis of demolition orders leads inspectors to pragmatic arbitration. By investigating the case for damage, the inspector shifts the cursor of the irregularity: this does not relate to the construction itself, but only to the damage caused to the neighboring household. The procedure thus recognizes the rights and responsibilities of the person responsible for the illegal construction about the building he has built, and tacitly acknowledges the legitimacy of the construction, on condition that the damage is repaired.
44It is thus possible to distinguish between the discourse and legalistic ambitions in urban control promoted by municipal leaders, and the diversity of local power practices, which sometimes include the passive recognition of land rights to residents without rights or titles. The cases handled by the inspectors demonstrate the flexible nature of legality and the non-normativity of administrative practices. Indeed, law enforcement officers constantly modulate its implementation by defining moments of tolerance or sanction (Bennafla, 2014). Above all, these cases testify to the way in which residents invest the State with the role of arbiter, that is, the ultimate authority in land property matters. Whatever the nature of the dispute (dispossession or damage to someone else's property), recourse to the police inspection recognizes the State's legitimacy in resolving property claims (Grajales, 2016).
45Hence, although unregulated urbanization may call into question the State's control capacity, recourse to its arbitration, or the recurrent requests for regularization made by residents, demonstrate that the State remains the symbolic authority providing legitimacy (Lund, 2021). In all processes of informal occupation, the state assumes the role of both adversary and guarantor of urban integration. In this sense, the relationship between the state and armed groups is not one of opposition, but of overlapping authority. For the inhabitants of precarious neighborhoods seeking to assert their rights (access to housing, regularization of public services, property ownership, etc.), state and armed groups are not substitutes but complementary.
46The transformations in informal urban production observed in Medellín resonate with the dynamics of the precarization of popular housing observed in other Latin American urban contexts. With the notions of stand-by urbanization (Müller, 2021) or permanent transitoriness (Villela de Miranda et al., 2019), researchers are conceptualizing, based on lived experience, the residential insecurity of the lower classes today accentuated by the consolidation of a highly precarious rental offer or the multiplication of development projects that threaten their living spaces. Our analysis, focusing on land rights, highlights another dimension of these uncertainties. Beyond the insecurity maintained by the lack of official recognition or perpetuated by administrative demolitions, the fragmentation of land rights operated by armed groups makes the control of time and the maintenance of zones of indeterminacy a mode of rent extraction. The control of these actors over urban production redefines the forms of land conversion, access to land, and living in popular neighborhoods. In a context where capital is formed and reproduced through violence, which establishes a land regime characterized by dispossession of land and rights over it, predatory accumulation appears to us to be a relevant framework for analysis.
- 10 Conceptualized by geographer David Harvey (2001), the spatial fix theorizes the spatial repercussi (...)
47On a global level, land regularization programs, urban renewal and integration policies, and the privatization and financialization of social housing production all testify to a growing trend towards the commodification of popular territories and housing (on these subjects, see respectively: Comelli, Anguelovki and Chu, 2018 ; E. Denis, 2012 ; Rolnik, 2019) et al.; E. Denis, 2012; Rolnik, 2019). These spaces thus become the terrain for renewed strategies of capital accumulation. Taking into account the very nature of capitalism, which constantly mobilizes geographical expansion or the restructuring of space to resolve its crises of overproduction, radical geography inscribes the commodification of popular territories within the historical movement of capitalist expansion (Harvey, Vieillecazes and Durand, 2020). The situation observed in Medellín can be paralleled with these dynamics of market expansion, but is nevertheless based on distinct scales and logic. In this way, it reveals other strategies for marketing popular spaces, operating locally and informally, and carried out by a variety of actors. In Medellín, the conquest and development of the informal land market by armed groups does not serve as an outlet for the overproduction of capital –as theorized by the " spatial fix "10– but rather compensates for declining market share in international narcotrafficking and responds to the mutations imposed by organizational restructuring. By becoming a driver of land conversion, armed groups attempt to solve a crisis related to the decrease in their income through the production of space. Land does not act as an outlet for investment, but as a resource around which to build a new market, based on accumulation through dispossession and rent extraction (Peluso and Lund, 2011). Through the prism of land rights, this article sheds light on the dynamics of the commodification and precarization of housing for the poor. In a context where criminal control of land and real estate markets is growing in Latin America, illicit actors are positioning themselves as key players in urban production, participating in the global transformations affecting popular housing.
