Meta-centrality and its Contradictions. Paradoxical Space of Resistance in Tlatelolco, Mexico City

Abstract

This paper analyzes the importance of centrality in spaces of social resistance featuring the Plaza de las Tres Culturas located in the emblematic Nonoalco-Tlatelolco Urban Complex in Mexico City, where violent repression of students took place before the XIX Olympic Games in 1968. Taking this event as a point of departure, the article reflects on the importance of centrality within its territorial, temporal, communicational and cultural dimensions in the transmission of social and political messages to the population. Through a historiographical analysis, the different events that occurred in the second half of the 20th century are examined, and in which the relevance of the case study in the events of 1968 is manifested. During the protests, Tlatelolco served as an urban epicenter where democratic practices were demanded, challenging the urban realm as an instrument of power and challenging military intervention that sought to suppress contradictions, demonstrate coherence and reduce a dialectical process to a logical framework. Through this period, the emergence of a renovated sense of citizenship is redeemed, assessing the configuration of power relations behind urban policies that ruled the daily life of citizens. As protests were perceived as the creation of a modern agora where urban space was reclaimed, we contend that these revolts arose from the despair and rejection of an authoritarian regime and that they were instrumental to cement democracy at the time. It is concluded that this event alone contested the power relations behind democracy, and triggered an emerging citizenship that transformed the daily lives of its citizens.