CONTEMPORARY CITIES

TENSIONS BETWEEN MICRO-TERRITORIALITIES AND NEGOTIATED AND/OR DISPUTED LOCATIONS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF “INTERTERRITORIALIZATION”

Abstract

The goal of this study is to analyze the shaping of micro-territorialities in the city of Buenos Aires. Why is it consistently relevant to discuss and think about borders in a world of constant flow? May one venture into stating that present-day cities are built based on a peculiar model related to the idea of borders? Could it be because we live in and move through “bordering cities” or perhaps because we seek to enclose ourselves between “borders within cities”? It isn’t by chance that our queries derive from the issues of borders, since, from our perspective, the general view associated with micro-territoriality is a pre-conceived one, and at the same time, is seen and considered among real or imagined demarcations. It is our aim to review social practices which make up the logic of different social actors, those of which co-produce complex and conflicting systems and policies of places (DELGADO, 1998) which transcend territorial conditions, thus disputing the culturalist and spatial view that tends to build different lands and social clusters in areas of equality.