The Rearticulation of the Territory. The Role of Exposed Writings in the Reconstruction of Valparaiso

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to characterize the relevance of exposed writings in the process of reconstruction after a catastrophic event, with special emphasis on two fundamental dimensions in the production of the territory: i) its incidence in the material and symbolic delimitation of space; ii) and its relevance in the demarcation of social relations with other inhabitants. A typology of four kinds of exposed writings is proposed to account for its impact on both dimensions (delimitation of space and demarcation of social relations): Marking and delimitation writings, organization writings, contestation writings, and restitution writings. Without pretending to be exhaustive, this typology seeks to provide analytical guidelines to understand the role played by exposed writings in post-disaster reconstruction processes. This paper relies on the theoretical perspective of catastrophe writings in a corpus of field notes generated during more than a year of observation in the field, interviews, walking interviews, and photographic record of different forms of exposed writings between April 2015 and November 2016 in the city of Valparaiso.