Nirvana Neighborhood: Public/private tensions

Abstract

Our object of study is the neighborhood called Nirvana [in City Bell, district of La Plata], and our aim is to describe the traces left by the landscape dynamics which mark different historical periods, and to relate the concept of landscape with this neighborhood's current territorial configuration. Framed in Cultural Geography, we go back to Milton Santos, Paul Claval and Mario Margulis' perspective, from the category of landscape. The methodology used was qualitative, and it entailed observation and photographic records of the area, informal talks with neighbors, compilation of documents and journalistic material about the area, all of which allowed us to dig deep into what is "public" and what is "private" in this neighborhood, where and how the "outside" and the "inside" are established and to decide whether its aim is being an open and including landscape or if what they are actually after is pushing strangers away by means of invisible barriers