Psychosocial production of public space in anti-repressive collective action

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Macarena Roldán

Abstract

This study analyses the production of psychosocial meanings around the central space of the city of Córdoba, Argentina, from the perspective of young people who mobilize in an anti-repressive collective action called Marcha de la Gorra. This action denounces the material and sensitive regulation that police surveillance operates on certain bodies (especially, youth from popular sectors), which has the effect of inhibiting or blocking the free habitation of public space. The research objective was twofold: I- to understand, from a psychosocial perspective, how the socio-spatial segregation operated by selective police control proceeds and, at the same time, II- to recognize the subjective and spatial meanings produced by the irruption of collective action in the disputed space. For this, a qualitative approach was used, supported by the ethnographic record in the mobilization and qualitative interviews with young participants (in-depth interviews and conversation-in-march). As this is a long-term study, conducted between 2014 and 2022, more than 60 young people, aged between 16 and 31, who participated in the collective action under analysis, were interviewed. Among the main findings, it was identified that the psychosocial production of public space in the sphere of collective action is expressed in three dimensions: artistic interventions in the street, the embodiment of protest and the collectivization of the conflict.

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Dossier Temático