Valparaíso as a World Heritage Site, between expulsion and participation

Abstract

The declaration of Valparaíso City as a World Heritage Site carries not only an honor for its geographical and urban qualities, it is also a conceptual value translated into a series of policies that influence the organization of life ways of those who make up this territory. Through this exercise, the city breaks with its social activity, to be determined by external devices, such as public policies emanating from a central power or as pressures from an economy that transforms and shapes the space according to the orders of the market, in view of turning it into a commercial product. This article presents the clash that occurs with heritage practices that seek to reduce forms of life to an abstract conceptual apparatus and restrict the activity of the city in favor of an alien and imposed identity. The applied methodology was hermeneutic-criticism, but also observation of cases and textual sources. The proposal of citizen participation is made explicit, which can be configured as an exercise that breaks the regulatory structures that govern the city.