Beyond the Walls: Campo de la Ribera (Argentina) and Villa Grimaldi (Chile) in the Urban and Social Fabric

Abstract

The aim of this study is to reassess two former torture and execution centres from a broader, more comprehensive perspective, a perspective that breaks down the physical and metaphorical walls built to maintain the perception that they were "aberrants" places, and visualizes them through the lens of their logistical urban grid operations. In the fist section, we present the various uses to wich Campo de la Ribera in Córdoba has been put, emphasizing the relations between the detention centre and the neighbouring community that prompter its transformation into a memory site. In the second, Villa Grimaldi in Santiago is approached from the prespective of various narratives and diverse artefacts that have been buit into and around it since it was recoverd by human rights organization. Finally, in the conclusion, we assess the commonalities of these two places that function as lurid devices in the state machinery devoted to surveillance and punishment, before becoming memory sites consacreted to the prevention of state terrorism.