Keeping the sanctuary pure: Movements and frictions in an Argentine gated community

Located on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Nordelta is one of the largest gated communities in Latin America. To produce a purified sanctuary, the Nordelta compound has deployed fenced walls, guards, barriers, CCTV cameras, dogs, movement sensors and a dozen other power mechanisms aimed at controlling human and non-human movements and behaviors in and around the compound. Its three accesses gates are crossed every day by thousands of cars, buses, students, visitors, workers, animals and objects. Looking closely at the issues of exchange and circulation, this article addresses the following questions: which entities—humans, objects and information—can access the compound and how; which cannot; and which are prevented from leaving. Further, it analyses the normalization processes through which potentially harmful entities must go through to be accepted inside Nordelta. The analysis not only reviews these dispositives but also considers the tactics devised and deployed by propietarios, workers and visitors to avoid, re-appropriate and/or resist them.