Defending Patrimony: Cultural Practices in The Public Space of La Plata

Abstract

This article analyzes the corpus of cultural practices of “Defendamos La Plata” (Let’s defend La Plata) and “Teatro Argentino sin rejas” (Argentinian Theatre without cages), civil groups that defend patrimony; it aims to answer what is cultural legacy? Who defines it? Do sociocultural and artistic actions to defend the legacy of La Plata exist? To find the answers, we need to do research about the notion of patrimony, but also we need to think about its territorial articulation. First, we provide definitions about territory and public space; secondly, we research how, related to territory, goods that “deserve" to be preserved appear, and third, we reconsider the conflict about cultural heritage. For this analysis, we follow a methodological and transdisciplinary design that includes contributions from visual studies, architecture, sociology, and geography. We will observe that the practices have, as a common core, the assemblage of sectors from civil society that place collective demands in order to defend patrimony issues intertwined with discussions about the administration of urban space. This way, we aim to examine and to investigate the structure of these actions with the priority, in each case, of the particularities of the construction methods of both groups involved. Finally, and with the specifications of La Plata’s case, we hope to contribute to the general analysis about urban conflicts and cultural legacy.