TERRITORY AND POLITICS: SOCIAL DISPUTE AND HISTORICAL MEMORY. THE DEFENSE OF THE TRAIN STATION AS A PUBLIC SPACE, MENDOZA 2006-2008

Abstract

This work tries to contribute to the analysis of the process of spatialization in class struggle, i.e., the marks left in physical space by the now hegemonic tendency to privatize public spaces and the symbolic constructions produced to signify said process.
To that effect I intend to analyze the ongoing conflict regarding the grounds of the former General San Martín train station in Mendoza, from 2006 to 2008. Having been closed during the 90s as part of the neoliberal policies implemented in our country, new privatization projects are currently appearing, among which a real estate business belonging to Corporación Antiguo Puerto Madero stands out. Faced with this new privatization attempt, three social organizations began a process of resistance and struggle in defense of these domains as public space. Specifically, the article focuses on the dispute that arises between the different significations that are built upon the image of the station and the city.
The article shows that, firstly, this semantic dispute between opposing significations speaks of their historical roots –the articulations of meaning produced between past, present, and future–; and secondly, that the dispute highlights that what is at play is not a problem of pure "signification", but something which refers to the density of the experience and to the importance attained in the individuals' subjectivity by the magnitude of their actions.
The methodology that was used is a qualitative analysis strategy: participant observation, in-depth interviews and secondary sources.