It is not easy to feel absolutely comfortable about being 'outside' in Bogotá public spaces. Not only because of the perception of being at the expense of a dangerous city; nor only because of the anxiety experienced in front of  the uncertainty of 'what happens' in spaces where social segregation and the consequences of a strong socioeconomic inequality are evident. The difficulty I am referring to lies in the condition of sharing spaces with 'the others', with strangers, rich ones or poor ones. Sharing urban spaces in Bogotá implies for its inhabitants - in my experience of having lived there for more than 22 years -  an automatic and pre-cognitive prevention, an irrational predisposition about accepting the difference, the pluralism, the heterogeneity, the existence of others living a life so extremely strange, so unfamiliar to the self experience of the private spaces that the city market offers to the self social group. Being 'outside' is commonly associated to a sense of fear, insecurity a distrust towards strangers, to a tendency configured by the construction of a collective imaginary of a city that suffers from an excess of population, of congestion, of traffic, of inequality; a collective image of a city that is about to explode, that is 'invaded', overpopulated, degraded and absolutely overloaded with contrasts.

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The collective imaginary of the City Centre of Bogotá, and mostly that of the inhabitants that routinely do not transit and habit its urban spaces and streets, is an image of culturally overloaded but infected spaces, 'invaded' by poverty, by informality, by those strange and even surrealist characters whose lacking of residential, working and recreational inner spaces - such as the luxurious and guarded gated communities, social private 'country clubs', private schools and universities of the 'have-more' - forces them to attempt to satisfy their basic and secondary  human necessities in the urban public spaces.  

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Thus, the collective imaginary of the City Centre of Bogotá is partly permeated by a sense of shame and denial. The ideal of the european and north-american  'development' and the  study of Bogotá as a 'underdeveloped' metropoli  - compared with the 'developed' cities of the world - and its comprehension influenced by the comparative urban studies work that "has generated a series of insights into comparative modes of urban governance, producing a variety of ideal types to capture the many urban pathways pursued by different cities (Ward, 2009, p. 472)", has produced a collective imaginary of the City Centre and its main street - La Séptima - that through comparison has always been dependent on the  images of other cities of the world, its apparent cleanliness, its stylish, high class and 'top' urban practices. Collective shame and denial of 'La Séptima' embrace and presuppose consequently a rejection of the popular culture, of informality, urban folklor, heterogeneity and multiplicity. The images of the city constructed by this restricted collective imaginary, are commonly configurations that do not have the intention of exploring urban popular cultures that give life to degraded public spaces, or of creating and recreating new images that could influence and change the collective imaginary of 'La Séptima' and consequently the spatial behaviors and actions connected to the perception of urban actors and their specific social necessities (Governa, 2011). Through new images - and a renewed collective imaginary of 'La Séptima' - it might possible 're-dream' the city, for it is through images that the city is able to dream itself, construct its own narrations (Amin and Thrift, 2002 & Rose, 2007 in Governa, 2011) and express its power relations (Governa, 2011). The image of the city, and its influence on the collective imaginary, orientates urban actions and constructs the possibility of consenting and sharing in the process of urban transformations (Governa, 2011), and also in the socio spatial relations and urban practices of everyday life  in public spaces.

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An open and more inclusive construction of an image of 'La Séptima', and its influence on the collective imaginary of its inhabitants,  could be possible through the acknowledgement and embracement of the urban collective culture and more specifically the popular culture flowing in this crowded pedestrian street.

 

Firstly, referring to collective culture in public space, Human geographer Ash Amin, argues that "through and beyond the consumption and leisure practices, the experience of public space remains one of sociability and social recognition and general acceptance of the codes of civic conduct and the benefits of access to collective public resources. It continues to be an experience that supports awareness of the commons, perhaps falling short of fostering active involvement in the life of a city, but still  underpinning sociability and civic sensibility (Amin, 2008, p. 7)". Nevertheless, accordingly to Amin, the recognition of collective culture and the performance of shared practices should not be reduced only to human actors and inter-human relations. Organic and inorganic entities, technological intermediaries, and an infinity of non-human objects generate and re-generate also the collective impulses of public space, the pre-cognitive human behaviors and responses to heterogeneity, the collective unconscious reflexes to the 'surplus' of living actors, to the turbulent dynamics and infinite dimensions present in the condition of 'situated multiplicity' that impregnates urban public spaces. Collective impulses guided by "mechanisms that somehow render the strange familiar and the familiar strange" generate an unconscious negotiation of space and bodies" (2008, p. 9); a relational, spontaneous and improvised accommodation and re-accommodation of actors in the urban 'surplus' that characterizes 'situated multiplicity' (Amin, 2008).  Amin claims that the urban practices in public spaces are guided by pre-cognitive behaviors, by irrational and sensory responses that configure the multiple 'happenings' of an uncontrollable means of action and identification. He also claims that the 'civic virtue' in public spaces emerges from the pre-cognitive spatial negotiations of spaces where non-hierarchical relations and openness to new changes guide the dynamics of situated multiplicity (2008). 'La Séptima' - firstly and historically an axis of vehicular flow - being recently  pedestrianized  embodies this 'surplus' of entanglements and motion, this 'situated multiplicity', this infinite openness to the constant renewal and re-configuration of collective culture.

 

Secondly, in order to acknowledge the cultural dynamics that animate 'La Séptima' and that constitute a fundamental aspect in the construction of the collective imaginary of its spaces,  influencing the negotiations of a 'situated multiplicity' of different social, it is pertinent to consider that the definition of popular culture has its origins on the relation between the notions of the 'dominant culture' and the 'dominated culture'[1]. Nevertheless, the french sociologist and anthropologist Denys Cuche, enunciates  that this notions of 'dominant' and 'dominated' culture constitute metaphors, where as the reality of this competition is composed by social groups related to each other in relations of domination and subordination. Thus, a dominated culture is not necessarily an alienated culture totally dependent of the dominant group. It is a culture that is constantly taking into account the dominant culture but in the same way is absolutely able to resist and respond to the dominant culture's impositions. Following this logic, the groups conceived as 'dominated' can be associated to the notion of 'popular cultures', whose expression through the collective impulses of urban practices in the public spaces of 'La Séptima' cannot be conceived as a pure imitation of the dominant groups, nor a simple and authentic original creation.  (Cuche, 2003 (1996))

 

Sensing 'La Séptima', its actors, its urban practices meant a profound immersion in the popular cultures of Bogotá. 

 

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