The non-city: Maturana, Fuguet, Contreras

Abstract

In this study, I analyze the configuration of the Chilean city (Santiago) in contemporary narrative and I trace maps that begin with the daily trajectories of the city's inhabitants: Their movement, interactions, encounters and non-encounters. In the majority of the cases analyzed, and as seen in the works of A. Maturana, A. Fuguet, P. Lemebel and G. Contreras, the city is represented as an anonymous space. It is marked by the constant threat to the individual's subjectivity and fear of the unknown, of otherness, the unforeseen and the disruption of routine. The city is the site of the impersonal and of the individual's detachment from the other. © 2014, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. All rights reserved.