“Encampment” refers to the construction of a field, the establishment of a territory, the act of defining and enclosing a piece of land. In Santiago, Chile, encampments (campamentos) have historically served as a means to conquer urban space, as a strategy through which people solved urban housing shortages on their own terms. Throughout the twentieth century, informal settlements established around the city’s periphery used tents and other forms of light construction as a first step toward gradually claiming ownership of the land, ultimately creating a pathway to formalized home ownership for those involved. The tents in the photograph from the early 1970s represent a city in which housing is the first and only element.