Paper Short Abstract:

The aim of this presentation is to narrate the process of popular urbanization in Guayaquil-Ecuador, based on the reconstruction of the neighborhood memory of Bastión Popular and Nigeria, through the memories of their residents and journalistic archives. I start from the idea that the Latin American popular neighborhood specifies urban socio-spatial boundaries that possess particular social, economic, and cultural characteristics, as well as unique historical trajectories. Thus, this proposal is interested in the ways in which popular inhabitants attribute meaning to the memory of the neighborhood space from its origins as informal settlements. Through the first year of the research project it was concluded that the configuration of the individual and collective identities of the inhabitants of these sectors positions the social memory of their territory with a preponderant role in their discourses. Ethnographic research was conducted between May 2022 and November 2023. The main results of the research allow us to visualize how despite having shared origins marked by marginalization, segregation, and invisibility; their configuration and current situation in terms of space meaning-making were very different, also taking into account the current socio-political and economic crisis that Ecuador is undergoing.

Paper Abstract:

The aim of this presentation is to narrate the process of popular urbanization in Guayaquil-Ecuador, based on the reconstruction of the neighborhood memory of Bastión Popular and Nigeria, through the memories of their residents and journalistic archives. I start from the idea that the Latin American popular neighborhood specifies urban socio-spatial boundaries that possess particular social, economic, and cultural characteristics, as well as unique historical trajectories. Thus, this proposal is interested in the ways in which popular inhabitants attribute meaning to the memory of the neighborhood space from its origins as informal settlements. Through the first year of the research project it was concluded that the configuration of the individual and collective identities of the inhabitants of these sectors positions the social memory of their territory with a preponderant role in their discourses. Ethnographic research was conducted between May 2022 and November 2023. The main results of the research allow us to visualize how despite having shared origins marked by marginalization, segregation, and invisibility; their configuration and current situation in terms of space meaning-making were very different, also taking into account the current socio-political and economic crisis that Ecuador is undergoing.