Interweaving public space with new forms of democracy from Latin America

Abstract

The reflection on a pluralistic, intercultural and transmodern democracy enables the debate to recover the social meaning of public space as a right and for the enjoyment of the entire society. Furthermore, it enables new relationships between the public and the private, but also between professionals and the community in general, considering in turn criteria of complementarity, in a relationship with nature, territory and sustainability. To address these ideas, we focus on the framework of the debate on the proposed ordinance that, in 2022, was managed by the municipality of Córdoba for the regularization of neighborhoods with a closed perimeter, and which according to current regulations should be open. We consider the various discourses deployed by the actors to defend their position through the dispute that occurs between the government and society, but also within each one. Subsequently, we investigate political categories such as universality and the people in relation to public space, glimpsing the capacity for agency that occurs from another that was considered passive and that can assume collective forms. Currently there are approximately 80 neighborhoods with these characteristics within the city. The conflict is established when the public space is subordinated to the antagonism of contingent wills, which is why it is also necessary to attend to the creation of a common sense to develop a more tolerable general will in the face of a different other. Not only from politics, from what is instituted, can the established order be changed, but from society itself. Professionals, based on their specificities, should deploy their skills at the service of negotiations to achieve consensus and guide possible actions for a more inclusive and accessible city for all.