Dwelling as Caring. Relational Spatialities in an Informal Settlement in Coquimbo, Chile

In Chile, the diversity of informal settlements has increased in recent years. Despite the opportunities they open for their inhabitants, they continue to be read as transient residential spaces marked by urban marginality. However, many of these settlements are now projected as permanent habitats where multiple trajectories, knowledges, and practices converge. From an ethnographic perspective, this study examines how, in a settlement with more than ten years of history in the city of Coquimbo, the process of spatial and sociomaterial configuration is articulated around affective relationships, ecological sensibilities, and aspirations that generate living environments. The text presents three narratives built from the experiences of camp residents, which reveal a spatiality grounded in relationships broadly understood through care. In the life stories of its inhabitants, the settlement becomes an infrastructure that sustains life — an unfinished and ongoing process. The article contributes to debates on urban informality by showing how care emerges as a key dimension in the socio-spatial consolidation of settlements with a vocation for permanence.