Interview with architect Ana Sugranyes I'm from here, I'm from there

Abstract

Chilean-Catalonian and a citizen of the world; architect (ETS, 1972, Fribourg, Switzerland) and Ph.D. in Urbanism (TU-Delft, 2007, Netherlands). Secretary at the Habitat and Housing Committee of the Chilean Association of Architects (ICA 12.131); and Chairperson of the Housing and Land Rights Network (HIC-HLRN). From 2003 to 2013, she was the General Secretary of Habitat International Coalition (HIC), the global network for the right of habitat, with more than 400 member social organizations throughout 120 countries. She also chairs the Edificio Oriente’s residents board in the commune of Providencia, Santiago, Chile, leading rehabilitation and heritage rescue activities.
Her expertise in housing issues draws from 50 years of research and support to social movements and professional organizations; urban housing policies and programs in Latin America; and stays in Guatemala (1976 - 1991) and Chile (since 1991). She has broad experience in local and international cooperation based on her work with Netherlands’ development agency, Cebemo, during the 70s and 80s; and Germany’s technical assistance –now the GIZ– from 1991 to 1998, in the Chile’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.
She is a human rights advocate, championing for human dignity in the territory and cities; and she works on city-related issues in constitutional processes, particularly revising the social role of property and the materialization of the right to the city.
Among her numerous published works are: Los con techo. Un desafío para la política de vivienda social (coeditor, 2005) Ediciones SUR, which reviews housing funding policies in Chile from 1980 to 2000 in the light of their outcomes, and social and urban impacts; Cities for all: Proposals and experiences towards the right to the city (coeditor, 2011), published by HIC in four languages; and Con subsidio, sin derecho. La situación del derecho a una vivienda adecuada en Chile (coeditor, 2018), Ediciones SUR, which reviews 35 years of housing subsidies under the perspective of economic, social, and cultural rights and questions the current prevalence of the right to property over the social function of land and the common good.
The article “La Nueva Agenda Urbana: pensamiento mágico” (Revista Hábitat y Sociedad N°10, University of Seville, 2017), explores the many differences among State discourses on urban issues and the social practices that transform cities, and was also published in three languages by HIC and the Habitat Conferences (1976-2016); several articles of the book Ciudades posibles. Apuntes para el debate sobre la Nueva Constitución de Chile in Revista Crítica Urbana (September 2020); and the article “La ciudad y los DESCA”, in Volume 3 (pp. 95-110), Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Human Rights Center of the University of Essex and Universidad de Concepción (2021), Derechos sociales y el momento constituyente de Chile: Perspectivas globales y locales para el debate constitucional.