Embodied Architectural Geographies of Consumption and the Mall Paseo Chiloé Controversy in Southern Chile

Abstract

In recent years, the geographies of architecture have expanded to include the affective and emotive dimensions of everyday life and the politics of urban space. This article explores these embodied geographies of architecture in an emerging urban landscape that has the built environment at its core: the postdictatorship retail landscape of neoliberal Chile. By drawing on findings from ethnographic research around the role of affect and emotion in the controversial development of a particular shopping mall in southern Chile, we get a better sense of how retail capital expands into new territories and how it responds to and enrolls embodied geographies in the process. Although this process does include the expansion of a particular kind of spatial technology that works through affective architectural interventions, this article also illustrates how such an expansion relies on prevailing imaginative and emotional geographies in important ways. As such, this embodied architectural geography does not sideline human subjectivity but explores its complex relationship with the materiality of landscape and affective architectural space. Key Words: affect, emotion, imaginative geography, landscape, shopping mall.

近年来，建筑地理学已扩展至包含每日生活的情感与情绪面向，以及城市空间的政治。本文在一个以建成环境为核心的新兴城市地景中，探讨这些身体化的建筑地理学：新自由主义智利的后威权零售地景。我们通过运用在智利南部一个特定购物商场发展争议中，情感与情绪所扮演的角色之民族志研究，更佳地理解零售资本如何扩张至崭新的领域，及其在上述过程中如何回应并徵召身体化的地理。尽管此一过程的确包含通过情感建筑的介入运作的特定空间技术的扩张，本文同时描绘此般扩张如何依赖普遍的想像与情绪地理之重要方式。于此，此般身体化的建筑地理并非旁观人类主体性，而是探索其与地景和情感建筑空间的物质性之间的复杂关系。关键词：情感，情绪，想像的地理，地景，购物商场。

En años recientes, las geografías de la arquitectura se han expandido para incluir las dimensiones afectivas y emotivas de la vida cotidiana, y la política del espacio urbano. Este artículo explora estas geografías encarnadas de la arquitectura en un paisaje urbano emergente que tiene el entorno construido en su centro neurálgico: el paisaje del comercio al menudeo de la época posdictadura del Chile neoliberal. Con base en los hallazgos de investigación etnográfica acerca del papel del afecto y la emoción en el desarrollo controvertido de un gran centro comercial en el sur chileno, llegamos a percatarnos mejor sobre cómo el capital del comercio al detal se expande en nuevos territorios y cómo responde a las geografías encarnadas y las inscribe en el proceso. Aunque este proceso no incluye la expansión de un particular tipo de tecnología espacial que trabaje por medio de intervenciones afectivas arquitectónicas, el artículo también ilustra el modo como tal expansión depende de maneras muy importantes de las geografías imaginativas y emocionales prevalentes. De por sí, esta geografía arquitectónica encarnada no margina la subjetividad humana, sino que explora su compleja relación con la materialidad del paisaje y del espacio afectivo arquitectónico.

Palabras clave:

• afecto
• emoción
• centro comercial
• geografía imaginativa
• paisaje.

Acknowledgments

I thank everyone who participated in the research for sharing their time and experiences with me. I thank the funding agencies, the Center for Latin American Studies and the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona for their support. I especially thank Beatriz Bustos-Gallardo and the Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo at the Universidad de Chile, and the late Rodrigo Salcedo and the Universidad Católica del Maule for sponsoring my Fulbright Fellowship. I also thank those at the University of Arizona who provided feedback and other support, including J. P. Jones, Sallie Marston, Miranda Joseph, Carl Bauer, Vin del Casino, and others. Also thank you Manuel Prieto, Liliana De Simone, Giovanna Bacchiddu, Anton Daughters, Ester Echenique, David Tecklin, Matías Guiloff, Ricardo Rivas, and Javier Mayorga, who also offered support, among many others. Finally, I thank Nik Heynen, Stephen Hanna, and the anonymous reviewer for their feedback, encouragement, and guidance during the review process.

Note

References

Notes

1 The names of all participants have been changed to protect their anonymity, but in the case that a participant was a public official, civic leader, or architect, most consented to and preferred using their real names.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Fulbright Commission (a program of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs); the Tinker Foundation; the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute, University of Arizona; and the Institute of the Environment, University of Arizona.

Notes on contributors

Jacob C. Miller

JACOB C. MILLER is a Lecturer of Human Geography in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include urban consumer culture, affect and emotion, (geo)politics, development, tourism, and critical theory.