Territories of memory: The rhetoric of the street in Villa Francia

Abstract

This paper approaches the relationship between memory, identity and territory, using as vehicle the diverse commemorative practices post-dictatorship developed in Villa France, an emblematic neighborhood of Santiago (Chile). This relationship is translated in using streets as a location where memory is situated as well as it is itself a part of the objects of the memory. The use of streets is the result of encounters and des-encounters through time, which involve the contents of memory as well as the material and symbolic characteristics of the commemorative public–space held practices. These memories, marginal in form and content to those promoted by the State, address and force a turning of the glance towards the comprehension of the street as the result of multiplicity, of that which is wished and not wished, as the result of practical actions of  identity within the territory.