The World of Streets: On Barricades, Zones, and Quebradas

Abstract

The current study aims to use the listening-flânerie to investigate spaces named by homeless populations as quebradas. This methodology lies on listening to different stories, through wanderings around the city, in order to investigate the blind fields of both their narratives and spatialities. The study sought to identify representations, openings, limits and potentialities of quebradas, in order to analyze the extent to which they manage counter-hegemonic spatialities. On the one hand, barricades were used as a historical paradigm for the comparative analysis of the process focused on subverting hierarchical power and on replacing winners’ discourse order by that of losers. On the other hand, the spatiality of homeless people and the way they take ownership of the city — totally silenced by urban theory — enabled analyzing the likely reconstitution of the hegemonic discourse through erratic street discourses. Thus, we herein confront quebradas with concepts, such as Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ), heterotopias and barricades, as starting points to investigate their potential as a differential form of urban struggle. Consequently, bringing quebradas to the core of discourse opens room to address the extreme struggle for everyday survival as a peculiar voice in a multitude of struggles against the city’s colonizing machines.