Cities are defined by more than just their buildings and streets; it is the spontaneous situations that occur in quotidian places that give them a sense of urban life. When inhabitants provoke relations built on dissidence and resistance, they are constructing strategies that defy the official establishment, resulting in a new type of city. This article examines the invisible networks of La Jota Street, located in the south of Quito, Ecuador, as a paradigm of what is a Latin-American counter-city. We analyze the hidden and often disregarded urban parameters that shape this kind of territory by using counter-cartographies, a novel graphic methodology based on research-by-making. In La Jota, this method consists of tracing the everyday spatial practices of inhabitants in the corridor’s urban form of narrow streets and passages. Key findings of this study include: an urban theoretical framework that goes beyond the examination of morphology to incorporate active, conflicting, and sensitive notions such as resistance and dissidence mainly in Global South cities; the production of counter-cartographies based on bodies, occupations, and affects as evidence of spatial constructions against the state apparatus designs; and potential implications to design strategies that include and respond to the actual lived experiences of inhabitants.
Cities are defined by more than just their buildings and streets; it is the spontaneous situations that occur in quotidian places that give them a sense of urban life. When inhabitants provoke relations built on dissidence and resistance, they are constructing strategies that defy the official establishment, resulting in a new type of city. This article examines the invisible networks of La Jota Street, located in the south of Quito, Ecuador, as a paradigm of what is a Latin-American counter-city. We analyze the hidden and often disregarded urban parameters that shape this kind of territory by using counter-cartographies, a novel graphic methodology based on research-by-making. In La Jota, this method consists of tracing the everyday spatial practices of inhabitants in the corridor’s urban form of narrow streets and passages. Key findings of this study include: an urban theoretical framework that goes beyond the examination of morphology to incorporate active, conflicting, and sensitive notions such as resistance and dissidence mainly in Global South cities; the production of counter-cartographies based on bodies, occupations, and affects as evidence of spatial constructions against the state apparatus designs; and potential implications to design strategies that include and respond to the actual lived experiences of inhabitants. Read More
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