Nostalgias for a barrio: narratives of generational loss from Esperanza neighborhood in Valparaiso, Chile

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on the case of Cerro Esperanza, in Valparaíso (Chile), the article investigates nostalgia experienced and expressed by two generations of inhabitants who are members of long-time resident families. Historically a blue-collar sector, it built over the 20th century and has not undergone many changes in its social structure or spatial organization since. In addition, despite not having lived the same experiences in the neighborhood, inhabitants of both generations feel nostalgia for the barrio of before and express discomfort at what they perceive as a progressive loss of neighborhood identity. The article explores their day to day nostalgic narratives, shedding light on the contradictions among identity and imaginaries associated with the past and present. This work seeks to understand the activation of nostalgia in these inhabitants and the meanings they give to this feeling, as mediated by their generational identity. The paper discusses the role of this latter in the activation, construction and use of a collective nostalgia and proposes to understand and analyze it not from the material changes to the context of the groups of inhabitants, but from their external, and internal, social changes.