Understanding Coastal Spaces Through Territorial Heritage. Case Study Of The Metropolitan Region Of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Claudia Beatriz CARUT

• M.Sc. Claudia Beatriz Carut
  ccarut@yahoo.com. +(54) 221 4248360
  Head of Practical Assignments - Department of Geography, UNLP [National
  University of La Plata]
  Doctoral Student at the National University of La Plata
  Member of the TAG Team, Lugar Innova, UNLP
  Av.7 nº 776 –1900 La Plata, Argentina1

In this paper we intend to detect spatial valorization trends and their territorial "weight" in the fluvial and estuarial front of the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires as a way to differentiate coastal subspaces elucidating the “weight of heritages”.We start by reflecting on the space in motion, defined from its complexity. This makes us think about the metropolitan coast as a process that leads to morphological changes, due not only to the structuring cycles present in every metropolis but also to the characteristics transmitted by “territorial heritages” and the new emerging configurations (Carut, 2003 b).

Thinking about the motion and complexity of a territory allows us to conceptualize the space through the work of Doreen Massey (2005), based on three propositions:

• Space results from interrelationships, regardless of the scale.
• Space is the sphere of possibility for the existence of multiplicity.
• Because space is the product of “interrelations”, it is always being made, becoming, never finished and never closed.

Regardless of its scale, the territory is a product of the interaction among actors, agents and social groups through time.

This argument allows for the perception of the historical expression of a territory because the territorial organization is the consequence of an expression of the valorization of space made by the actors, agents and social groups through time. Thinking about the territorial organization as a process loaded with historicity implies the study of territorial transformations that allow to decipher those judgments and to understand that such spatial organization has historically favored some areas to the detriment of others (Carut, 2003 a). One possible way to make this idea operational is to understand space as “the matrix resulting from the intertwining of a territorial configuration and a spatial organization” (Cóccaro, J. and Agüero, R, 1998:83). Where the arrangement or distribution of natural and social objects “situated” in a moment is the expressed consequence of the reproduction of the spatial structure that derives from power relationships between sectors with particular interests (Cóccaro, J. y Agüero, R, 1998).

The analysis can be placed within the historical process of conformation of the Argentine territory. The role played by the relationships between power and decision structures, multi-scalar and multinational, becomes an essential part of it, as well as the degree of “adaptive” insertion of the Argentine space in this context, in accordance with the characteristics and the “climate of ideas” that define the historical stages (Stagnearo, et al. 2000).Starting from the ideas previously sketched, we propose the following course to decipher the characteristics of the current spatial organization in our territory of analysis: the determination of the structuring axes of historic spatial valorization trends and the identification, in the current spatial organization, of territorial heritages.To delineate the spatial valorization trends and elucidate their “territorial imprints” we take into account the historical average of occurrence of significant facts that have established, in our opinion, the base for their organization. When we mention average historical facts we mean the impact of "significant” facts, within the same historical stage, that links the variables and their time-space context in a dialectical way. “The reconstruction of the successive time-space sequences is essential to determine the historical content of the territorial today and to decipher the different historical weights of the times compressed into it". (Stagnearo et al, 2000:3).

The Argentine economy has been an “economy of adaptation", its basic behavior was, and still is, that of adjusting to opportunities created by other economies. The technological behavior, adaptive and belated, tried to “accommodate” to “major innovations” and not to create them.This behavior has not led to a process of development phases or cycles, but to a series of “booms” or “bubbles” that, when they wear out, leave just a few isolated “drops” of technical and productive capacity instead of a new style of capacities on top of which a new development cycle could be generated. (Azpiazu, D and Nochetff, H; 1994: 27). This adaptive expansion bubbles were molded by an economic elite that was particularly flexible to adapt to the changes of the international economy and to identify and exploit “soft options”, creating monopolies that weren’t eroded by competition. Azpiazu and Nochetff (1994) define, through Argentine history, three bubbles: the one driven by the exporting of primary products; that of the import substitution industrialization led by transnational companies; and the bubble driven or led by external borrowing. It is worth mentioning that even though these authors don’t refer to the time span before 1852 it must be considered in our work, because it is in this stage that the first imprints were made in our space of analysis.

References

• Cóccaro, José M. y Agüero, Ricardo (1998) El espacio geográfico: un marco de análisis. En reflexiones Geográficas. Agrupación de docentes universitarios de geografía. Río Cuarto 79 – 86.
• Stagnearo, Susana, Carut, Claudia, Relli, Mariana y Galarza, Laura (2000). “El espacio situado y su representación en el litoral estuarial bonaerense (provincia de Buenos Aires. Argentina)”. [CD-Rom] En: Actas de las 2 Jornadas Platenses de Geografía. Departamento de Geografía. Facultad de Humanidades y Cs. de la Educación. UNLP, 13 al 15 de septiembre de 2000.
• Carut, Claudia (2003 a) Transformaciones territoriales de la Periferia de la Ciudad de La Plata: análisis de conflictos ambientales recientes. Tesis para optar por el grado de Magíster. Facultad de arquitectura, urbanismo y diseño. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata.
• Carut, Claudia (2003 b) Conflictividades ambientales recientes de la periferia de la ciudad de La Plata. En: Pintos, Patricia (compiladora) (2003) Pensar La Plata. política pública, sociedad y territorio en la década de los 90. Colección Universitaria Geografía. Ediciones al Margen.
• Massey, Doreen (2005) La filosofía y la política de la especialidad: algunas consideraciones. En: Arfuch, Leonor (compiladora) (2005) Pensar este tiempo. Espacios, afectos, pertenencias. Editorial Paidós. Buenos Aires.