Espacio urbano y transformaciones políticas durante la transición de la última dictadura a la democracia

Un análisis de la revista El porteño entre 1982 y 1984

Abstract

Since 1982, the recovery of urban space in the city of Buenos Aires by the popular majorities was a key dimension of the political process that led the country from dictatorship to democracy. This paper is an analysis of the textual marks left by this process in El porteño (1982-1993), one of the most important political and cultural magazines of the 1980s, during 1982 and 1984. The first point of this analysis shows how the way of thinking, writing and imagining a city in and for democracy could not do without a certain semblance of the dictatorial city. This characterization highlights an urban space artificially "ordered" by means of repression and closed to forms of political participation. Secondly, this paper analyze the way in which popular mobilization is thought of in the light of the political crisis of the dictatorship and how it served to raise questions about the modes of participation in the context of the return of political activity in trade unions, political parties and human rights activists. The political occupations of streets, avenues and squares were a way of anticipating and experiencing democracy during the transition. Finally, this article shows how the democratizing impulse consolidated during 1983 manifested itself during the first year of the radical party's administration in a series of discussions that focused on tensions in urban space and raised ethical-political questions about how to live with others.