Watermarks: Urban Flooding and Memoryscape in Argentina PDF
Preview Watermarks: Urban Flooding and Memoryscape in Argentina
ACTA UNIVERSITATIS STOCKHOLMIENSIS Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology N.S. 8 Watermarks Urban Flooding and Memoryscape in Argentina Susann Ullberg © Susann Ullberg and Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis 2013 ISBN electronic version: 978-91-87235-25-2 ISBN printed version: 978-91-87235-26-9 Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology N.S. 8 ISSN 0347-0830 CRISMART Volume 40 ISSN 1650-3856 This is a print on demand publication distributed by Stockholm University Library. Full text is available for free and on line at www.sub.su.se First issue printed by US-AB 2013. Publisher: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Stockholm Distributor: Stockholm University Library References to internet web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis is responsible for web sites that may have expired or changed since this book was prepared. Cover illustration: Design by Christer Engström. Photo “Westside dwellers self- evacuating on the railway embankment in the 1929 flood” courtesy Archivo General de la Provincia de Santa Fe-Hemeroteca-Fototeca. Photo “Inun- dados/activists commemorating la Inundación on the Westside flood embank- ment in 2005” by author. For the inundados of Santa Fe List of contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... i Chapter 1 | Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 Disaster and memory .................................................................................................................. 1 Marta and la Inundación ....................................................................................................... 2 The relevance of the study: Disasters in focus ............................................................................ 4 Disasters and the study thereof .................................................................................................... 5 Conceptualising disaster ........................................................................................................ 6 The concept of vulnerability ................................................................................................. 8 Coping with disaster: Vulnerability and resilience ................................................................ 8 The problem: Resilience and memory ................................................................................. 11 Further theorising memory ........................................................................................................ 13 From collective memory to memoryscape .......................................................................... 13 Modes of remembering ....................................................................................................... 15 Temporalities of remembering ............................................................................................ 16 Forms of remembering ........................................................................................................ 18 Memory and oblivion .......................................................................................................... 19 Exploring the traces of disaster: Methodological concerns ....................................................... 21 Composing a field ............................................................................................................... 22 Translocality ....................................................................................................................... 23 Transtemporality ................................................................................................................. 23 Mapping the Santafesinian flood memoryscape .................................................................. 24 Memory and methodology .................................................................................................. 25 Reflexion and roadmap ............................................................................................................. 27 Organisation of the chapters ................................................................................................ 29 Chapter 2 | Context ................................................................................................. 33 Urban life and vulnerability in Argentina ................................................................................. 33 Argentinian politics of regret .................................................................................................... 33 Democracy, human rights and the explosion of memory in Argentina................................ 36 Argentina, the barn of the world, through breakdown and recovery ................................... 38 The Argentinian political map of the 21st century ............................................................... 41 Santa Fe, generous province and the barn of Argentina ............................................................ 42 The Santafesinos and their city ........................................................................................... 45 A barrio in Santa Fe City .................................................................................................... 51 Middle- and low-income economies in Santa Fe................................................................. 54 Migration, industrialisation and urbanisation ...................................................................... 57 Social stratification and urbanisation .................................................................................. 59 Poverty and social assistance .............................................................................................. 62 Among changarines, cirujas and piqueteros ....................................................................... 63 The urban outskirts and notions of perilous places.............................................................. 65 The Coastside: The harbour and Alto Verde ................................................................. 67 Life on the islands ......................................................................................................... 68 Urban and suburban vulnerabilities in the past and in the present ............................................. 70 PART ONE .............................................................................................................. 73 Chapter 3 | La Inundación and the making of an accidental community of memory .................................................................................................................... 75 The post-disaster ....................................................................................................................... 75 Narrating la Inundación ............................................................................................................ 76 Withering weather ............................................................................................................... 76 The canonisation of la Inundación ...................................................................................... 77 Placing memory ........................................................................................................................ 81 A driveabout in the flood memoryscape.............................................................................. 81 City of comrades in the Cordial City ............................................................................. 82 Perilous people and places ............................................................................................ 83 Walking the embankment ................................................................................................... 84 Place and inscription of disaster memories ................................................................... 86 Writing and performing disaster memories: Testimonials ......................................................... 88 Telling la Inundación .......................................................................................................... 88 Launching books, making memory ............................................................................... 89 Writing and performing flood memories from Santa Rosa de Lima .............................. 91 The sounds of disaster ............................................................................................................... 93 Charity concerts .................................................................................................................. 94 Voices from a tragedy ......................................................................................................... 95 Visualising la Inundación: The documentaries ......................................................................... 96 Inundaciones: Recording and recalling evacuation ............................................................. 97 Inundados in an ethno-biographical gaze ............................................................................ 99 La Inundación visualised: Photography in private and public ........................................... 102 Materialising and placing disaster memories .......................................................................... 104 Forgotten monuments? ...................................................................................................... 105 The Flooded Mothers and the Plaza 29 de Abril square .................................................... 106 The making of an accidental community of memory .............................................................. 110 Chapter 4 | Post-disaster protests and the making of a polity of remembering ................................................................................................................................ 111 Disaster politics and politics of memory ................................................................................. 111 Narrating inundation and indignation ...................................................................................... 111 Victims as activists ................................................................................................................. 116 The inundados protest movement in the national context ................................................. 116 From disaster solidarity to accountability ......................................................................... 117 Morality, memory and mobilisation .................................................................................. 119 Work of memory, work of protest ........................................................................................... 120 Anniversaries: The 29th ..................................................................................................... 121 Making memorable places ................................................................................................ 122 Making memory in memorable places ........................................................................ 124 Inscriptions of blame: Four examples ............................................................................... 127 I: Escraches and street graffiti ..................................................................................... 127 II: Juxtaposed artefacts of memory ............................................................................. 131 III: Pamphlets and books ............................................................................................. 133 IV: Documentos and reports ........................................................................................ 134 Assembling documentos ........................................................................................ 134 Presenting results .................................................................................................. 137 Voicing blame ................................................................................................................... 141 Visualising blame .............................................................................................................. 142 On the making of a polity of remembering ............................................................................. 145 Chapter 5 | Flood management and the logic of omission ................................. 147 Politics of memory / oblivion in politics ................................................................................. 147 The official memorial of la Inundación? ........................................................................... 147 Unveiling hidden transcripts ....................................................................................... 151 Bureaucratic practices and cycles of exclusion ................................................................. 154 Archives and the materialisation of selective remembering .............................................. 156 Santafesinian archives ................................................................................................. 157 Public infrastructure of memory and oblivion ................................................................... 160 Works of development, works of risk ......................................................................... 161 Works of defence ........................................................................................................ 163 Law and memory .............................................................................................................. 168 Risk reduction and regulation in Argentina ................................................................. 169 Legislation regarding flood management in Santa Fe ................................................. 170 Governmental amnesia and judicial amnesty during la Inundación ............................ 171 The Contingency Plan: Launching a new disaster management policy ............................. 174 Plans as social artefacts ............................................................................................... 175 The 2005 contingency plan for Santa Fe: Remembering risk ...................................... 176 A plan, form or content? ........................................................................................ 177 Planning for disaster risk reduction ....................................................................... 178 Flood management and shelved plans ......................................................................... 180 On the political and bureaucratic logic of omission ................................................................ 183 PART TWO ........................................................................................................... 185 Chapter 6 | Urban flooding as mythico-history .................................................. 187 Floods in the past .................................................................................................................... 187 Commemorating origins.................................................................................................... 188 Myths and legends ............................................................................................................ 190 The legend of the angry Paraná River ......................................................................... 191 The Catholic and the Atlantis ...................................................................................... 193 Flooding and myth ...................................................................................................... 194 The Great Flood ................................................................................................................ 194 The quest for artefacts of disaster memory .................................................................. 195 Disaster on display ...................................................................................................... 196 Los inundados in Santafesinian literature and art .................................................................... 199 The social category of inundados ...................................................................................... 201 Los Inundados – the novella ........................................................................................ 202 Los Inundados – the movie ......................................................................................... 205 Los Inundados – the song ............................................................................................ 209 Narrating los inundados in images, texts and songs .................................................... 210 On the mythico-history of flooding in Santa Fe ...................................................................... 212 Chapter 7 | Flooding and embedded remembrance in the urban outskirts ..... 213 Remembering recurrent flooding ............................................................................................ 213 Historicising floods through media reports ............................................................................. 214 Forgetting flooding? .......................................................................................................... 216 Disaster memories in the everyday suburban economy ........................................................... 218 On the top of the flood embankment ................................................................................. 219 Between trámites and planes ....................................................................................... 221 The extraordinary repair of la Inundación ................................................................... 223 Trading memories at the Trueque ..................................................................................... 225 Notions of the economy of solidarity ................................................................................ 228 Landscape, task and small talk on the Coastside ..................................................................... 231 The rowabout .................................................................................................................... 232 Absent places .................................................................................................................... 235 Intergenerational place-making through conversation....................................................... 237 Safety buildings, risk reminders .............................................................................................. 240 Commemoration in Alto Verde: Foundation, fiesta and flooding ........................................... 242 On embedded remembrance .................................................................................................... 245 Chapter 8 | Conclusion ......................................................................................... 247 Watermarks ............................................................................................................................. 247 The Santafesinian flood memoryscape .................................................................................... 247 Normalisation of disaster: Adaptation or vulnerability? .......................................................... 251 In sum ..................................................................................................................................... 255 Sammanfattning på svenska ................................................................................ 257 Reference list ......................................................................................................... 259 List of figures ......................................................................................................... 302 Index ...................................................................................................................... 303
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