lLos pueblos de ingenios como espacios heterotópicos: Narración y política

Abstract

In Project 2076, "Art and literature in contemporary urban spaces", we looked into both the complexity of the constitution of cities and the diversity of forms they present. From rural villages to mega-cities, it is possible to trace a route that is not only quantitative, but also allows us to see multiple shades in the forms of appropriation of space, in the projects that constitute them and in the ways of symbolization that move around those spaces. On this occasion we will deal with a particular urban model, namely, the villages of sugar mills, where only the workers of such companies live, in a distribution of places that are equivalent to the labor ladder that they hold not only in terms of housing, but also in the distribution of public spaces. These communities are the result of the convergence of economic, social and production logics and are proposed on the basis of entry and closure requirements, where daily life is regulated by work schedules, and are constituted as a critical challenge to other work spaces. From this perspective, they can be considered as heterotopias, as far as they break the flow of human groupings and impose themselves as neutral or pure places (Foucault 2009), that is, counter-spaces that challenge other orders of community life. The ingenious villages put in relation multiple spaces, some of them incompatible with each other, and set out a temporary closure that takes them out of the historical becoming. In order to support the arguments around this hypothesis, we will review historical records and testimonies as well as literary figures, specifically, the novel The Sex of Sugar, by Eduardo Rozensvaig.