Monstrous Other or an invisible Self?

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MONSTROUS OTHER OR AN INVISIBLE SELF?

A REFLECTION ON THE ROLE OF SELF-OTHER RELATIONS IN THE

IDENTITY FORMATION USING AN EXAMPLE OF THE IMAGE OF

THE MEDELLÍN RIVER (MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA)

Polina Golovátina-Mora

Raúl A. Mora

Abstract: Identity, as an essential characteristic of an individual, personal or collective, may

have multiple expressions and affect both the relations with the Other and the perception of Self.

In this article, I describe the city as a collective identity and the processes of exclusion and their

influence on the identity of Self. I focus on the symbolism of the Medellín River in the broader

context of the Self-perception and the construction of the collective Self in Medellín, Colombia.

The suppression of the memories of the past and certain realities of the present leads to

externalizing or othering certain parts of Self. This, as a result, shrinks the space of Self and

hinders self-actualization. This study can contribute to understand better both the role of the

Other for the formation of Self and the idea of formation of Self in the process of equal Self-

Other relations.

Keywords: exclusion, urban spaces, spatial narratives, monstrosity, visibility

El río es como un viaje para el sueño del hombre,

el hombre, es como el río, un gran dolor en viaje (José Ángel Buesa).

Urban spaces as a Self-Other narrative

Identity, the process of constructing self-awareness and knowledge about Self and the

world around (see Locke 1689, II; Gertler 2011, 3.3), is central to the life cycle. Both sociology

and social psychology argue that knowledge (Gómez Ospina 2013, 1.1) and personal identity

(Hopkins & Murdoch, 1999; Swann & Bosson, 2010) formation are relational. As Berger and

Luckmann (1991) stated, “identity … stands in a dialectical relationship with society” and “is

formed by social processes” (p. 194). Broadly speaking, those are relations with an environment

that provides the others in comparison to whom we form our own Self.

Understanding the Other‟s role depends on the philosophical school and has changed

throughout the development of Western philosophy (Neumann 1999, ch.1). The Other, however,

has always been essential in defining Self. The balance between Self and the Other is necessary

for the healthy development of Self and Self-knowledge, as both humanistic psychology

(Eddington & Schuman, 2006) and dialogue philosophy (Tischner, Lévinas, Buber, Kapuściński)

suggest. In that sense, the relations between the unconscious and conscious in the sane psyche

(Jung 1988, 52) serve as a metaphor for the Self-Other relations. Similarly, inspired by Lewin

(1964), urban studies discuss the threefold relation between an individual and the environment

as: (a) humankind‟s urge to changing the environment due to the restlessness of their nature

(Tuan, 1998), (b) individuals and their environment‟s forming “one unique and inseparable

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entity” and (c) the environment‟s capacity for “profound influence on the individual” (Lotito

Cotino 2009, 14).

A city, then, becomes “a symbolic space that represents visions that a human being has in

respect to the environment they live in”, which will include their hopes, desires and aspirations

(Lotito Cotino 2009, 15). This space is formed by natural environment, transformed environment

and social environment (Lotito Cotino 2009, 15), as well as by imagination – ideas, reflections

and creative activity – which makes an important part of the knowledge construction process

(Kant 2013 [1787], Introduction; Tolkien 1947; Ricoeur 2006). This allows us to look at the city

and urban spaces as spatial narratives. Space, as Victoria Thompson demonstrated in her analysis

of nineteenth century Paris spatial stories (2003), “is implicated in that narrative as a perceptual

and ideological category” and the narrative itself “has serious implications for the formation of

identity and the distribution of power” (p. 556).

Urban space as monster

Monstrous theory defines a monster as the recognition of Self, communication between

Self and the Other, or, broadly speaking, between Self and the external world. Monsters reflect

an external projection of the fragmented Self (Shildrick 2002; Mittman 2006; Cohen 2012; Jung

1956). They become something external, with a life of their own. The more monsters remind us

of the conscious and accepted Self, the more disturbing they are (Mittman 2006; Shildrick 2002).

Suppressing, marginalizing, or disregarding the monster and its origins leads to projection of

them to other objects or groups (Jung, 1956, 209).

Monsters are not exactly private and immaterial. They surface as hallucinations or

personification of emotions (Skogemann 2009, Introduction). They also enter myths and public

culture, affecting the city planning and the space around us. Monsters, as argued by several

studies (Foucault 2003 [1974-75]; Sharpe 2010), are legal categories that reflect power relations

(Auerbach 1997). Constructing the monster always includes negotiating normality: our normal

Self vs. an abnormal Other. Even if it is the same Self, one does not recognize it as such, but

ignores it, rendering it invisible. A good literary illustration for that is the repeated rationale for

the perception of giants and house elves in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (Rowling

2003; Ch. 20, 37): slightly paraphrasing, they are what they have been made by wizards.

Studies of spatial monsters are increasingly popular today (cfr Monstrous geographies

conferences; Topographies of Popular Culture, Tampere 2013). Saunders (2012, cited in Powel

2013) defined zombies as “a metaphor for spatial defence by the faceless other” (p. 10). Cities,

as Powel argued (2013, 3), are built by mankind as an embodiment of civilization and culture.

That brings us to a typical mechanism for monster creation: a binary between the natural

(understood as savage, animalistic) and the civilized (Foucault 2003; Sharpe 2010; Jung 1956).

Everything uncivilized should be “fixed” if possible; otherwise, either repressed or destroyed.

The Medellín river, running through Medellín, Colombia, which is the object of study in

this article, represents a metaphor of the city and the power relations between the civilized us

(the city) and the savage other (the river). It embodies the conversation between the civilized and

the savage beings of Self – the Self-narrative.

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Public and private spaces

Before discussing the river, let us look at another category – the public and private

(individual, personal) space. As previously mentioned, Self and the Other are in permanent

interaction, negotiating and affecting each other. It would thus be a mistake to frame the private

and public spaces as binary oppositions, given how binaries actually limit our understanding of

social processes (Mora Vélez 2010, 179).

Some studies (e.g. Boym 1994) show that common spaces are not exactly an all-

encompassing collective property, but rather as the space that excludes the individual. Emotions

typically evoked by such spaces include fear, envy, tiredness and guilt (Boym 1994, Ch. 2;

Gorsuch 2003), manifesting a traumatic experience (de Jong 2011). Compensatory or protective

behavior may surface as longing for the “lightness of being”, vandalism, use of offensive

language (de Jong 2011; Mental health 2004), and preference for smaller collectives like

neighborhoods or families (Cook 2001). This reaction brings us closer to repressing rather than

reconciling or solving the problem, thus curtailing further harmonious development of Self. The

logic of this vicious circle is quite similar to Fromm‟s (2001 [1942]) logic of the fear of freedom.

Freedom is human nature; however, the process of individuation (gaining freedom) has a by-

product – a growing frightening feeling of aloneness. Growing aware of the “possibilities and

responsibilities of the individual action”, a person may wish to “give up the integrity of its self”

(Fromm 2001, 25-26). The other way to overcome anxiety and fear is a productive activity “that

connects the individual with the world without eliminating his individuality” (p. 26).

This does not suggest that privatization of the common spaces would be the only solution

(Sinden 2007). Rather, I speak of the privatization of the individual imaginary by combining

education, the actual improvement of the quality of life and the development of individual and

collective responsibility. True possession, as I understand it, means appropriation or inclusion. It

refers to the possession of Self instead of the Other, a sense of responsibility for the Other,

whose outcome is the responsibility for Self (Saint-Exupéry 1943; Lévinas 1989 [1947]; Buber

1923).

We can find a good example of such an attempt in the local government program Cultura

Metro (Metro Culture). According to the project‟s official web site (Cultura Metro 2013), it is

“the product of social and educational management” that “relies on basic trust in people‟s

goodwill and their capacity to adopt rules and responsibilities”. Its purpose is to “foster a culture

of civic duty that wishes to instill harmonious coexistence, exemplary behavior, solidarity, self-

respect and mutual respect, and the observance of basic regulations in the use of public services,

among other values”. It intends to improve not only the quality of life, but also the community,

people themselves (Chaves 2008).

This idea seems to be central to most projects for quality of life improvement in the city

and its urban environment at large, including aquatic resources (e.g. Infro Ojo 2012). The

billboard on a strolling path of El Salado eco-park in Envigado (outside Medellín) situated on the

upper course of the Ayurá creek suggests to “live nature, take care of it – it is yours”. The last

word is significant. Belonging and feeling the real possession can create individual and social

confidence, reduce fear and contribute to the sustainable and reflective development of the

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environment, increasing social security and improving individual lives. Aesthetics of the

environment (Florida, et al., 2009; Vlad, 2009) is another important factor for maintaining the

community feeling.

Medellín, the river and the city

Throughout the history of mankind, rivers have symbolized an infinite source of life and

power while concealing danger and death (e.g. Tressider 2008). They also serve as a metaphor

for individual and communal memory (Golovátina-Mora and Golovatina, 2013). The Medellín

River, as Germán Suares Escuerdo (Infra Ojo 2012) noted, used to be an integral part of the local

mythology. In her blog entry on the river, Ingrid Serna (2008) mentioned two rivers: one clean

and alive, appearing in our forefathers‟ stories, and a dead one, as we know it today.

The Medellin river, extending over 60 km long, is the main river of the Aburrá Valley

(Medellín‟s Metropolitan Area) and has “historically framed the city development” (Bravo 2008;

Clima 24/7 a). It has been an energy source for the whole region. In the 17-18th

centuries, it still

contained gold. It was part of the irrigation system for the local agriculture, home for a good

variety of fish and served as a transportation route for raw materials (e.g. wood) (Infra Ojo,

2012). The city creeks were a center of economic, social and recreational activities (Quiceno

Toro, Muñoz, Montoya, 2008).

Because of the geographical limitations for the expansion, the city and its main

transportation routes had to adopt the shape of the river bed (Schnitter, Giraldo, Patiño, 2006),

which made them even more dependent on the river and its seasonal changes. With the growth of

the city it became an obstacle, if not a nuisance (Infra Ojo 2012). Since the 1950s, the population

of the Aburrá Valley has had to settle in areas more exposed to natural disasters. This process

was accompanied by losses and victims (Hermellín 2007, 10-11). The river that “used to have a

life of its own” (Infra Ojo 2012) had to be “civilized” (Clima 24/7 a; González 2012) as the price

for the city‟s rapid development, its industries and the population growth that it was generously

stimulating. It was contaminated – assessments on the water quality of most creeks in the urban

area label it as bad (Perfil 2011; see also Restrepo 2013), driven underground (e.g. Santa Elena

Creek, 1930), and canalized (e.g. Plan Piloto, 1948). The river lost its original form or even

became invisible: it “turned into a painful wound gashed throughout the modern city. The way it

is, it‟s better not to look at it” (Isaza 2012). The river name itself demonstrates the city‟s

domination over the river. Even if the priority was given to harmonious city-river relations, as in

the Medellín Master Plan from 1948 (Schnitter Castellanos, 2004), the emphasis was rather on

the city and its immediate needs than on the river.

Recent research, artistic and urban planning projects emphasize the lack of awareness and

knowledge among the population (Restrepo Toro 2013; Infra Ojo 2012). That actually shows

another side of the invisibility and the aforementioned suppression, disregard or indifference.

According to Ricoeur (2006), “the tie between futureness and pastness is assured by a bridging

concept, that of being-indebt” (p. 363). One way of understanding the debt, as Ricoeur

suggested, is to see it as a “guardian of the referential claim of historical discourse”, transmission

of heritage that, however, “does not exclude a critical inventory” (p. 363). It is interesting that

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the recent projects on the inclusion of the river Medellín introduce the idea of debt instead of

favor (Infra Ojo 2012; Botero 2011).

Today’s river: a disfigured monster?

“More and more straightened” (see Botero 2011), hidden among the riverside bushes or

under the grey concrete metro constructions, the river and the creeks are running in their concrete

beds around occasional litter, plastic bottles, and clothing shreds. Often a dump for human waste

(Monografía del río Medellín), it also became a dump for dead bodies (Fox 2011), thus reflecting

the city‟s history. The river is physically separated from the city and its inhabitants. There is no

path down to the river: only homeless people go down to wash up or rest in the pipe exits beside

the walls of the concrete river bed. Around the metro stations there is a human height tall net

fence running along the river bank. Information signs with the name of the creeks look old,

darkened with time, and lopsided.

The Metro, specifically its Metrocable (elevated cable car) aimed to increase civil

participation by making poor neighborhoods visible (Chaves 2008). Running for its most part

along the river, the Metro increases the river‟s visibility. Yet occupying the air while the ground

is still unsafe, the Metrocable continues building both physical (the metro cabins, wagons or

general metro constructions) and invisible boundaries between us inside and them outside. For a

few times during the year, the river banks become open to public: at Christmas, when a small

part of the river host Christmas lights, on some nights and weekend, when it hosts cycling routes,

and whenever marathon routes run along the river. However, most of the time, its banks are

home for homeless, drug addicts, and prostitution (En la orilla del río). After dark, it is simply

dangerous: “If you come here you would come with an obvious purpose” (En la orilla del río). A

recent participant of a marathon held in September 2013, a foreign resident of the city herself,

remarked (personal communication):

It was shocking. I can only imagine what the invited foreign participants, who rarely move far beyond the

Poblado area [commercial, high class zone of Medellín], could possibly think about it. When we were

approaching the Prado part, around the University of Antioquia, the smell of human excrements was so

strong that, I thought, I would throw up… If someone thinks it‟s a beautiful place, I can easily show them

around such areas… Indeed, it looks like there are two cities, Medellín of the rich and Medellín of the poor,

which are completely isolated of each other.

Nevertheless, public polls on the perception of the quality of life in the city demonstrate

that the majority of respondents, regardless of social strata, consider it acceptable or good

(Encuesta 2011, Percepción).

The river is not the only space that was “civilized” and turned invisible. For security

reasons, poor neighborhoods, hills, and parks (González 2012; Ortiz Franco 2013; Plan de

Manejo 2006) have been repressed and isolated from the space of the “civilized” (conscious and

accepted) Self, which led to their shrinkage, deepening the social exclusion and disintegration.

The city as a product of human activity represents an opposition to nature. Hills, for

example, become barriers of urban expansionism (Plan de Manejo 2006). That may turn nature

into an obstacle as is the case of the Medellín River: in need of conquering or, when said

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conquest turns impossible, ignoring. Management plans speak about integral development of the

entire city, and, so, about inclusion. At the same time, the keyword is recuperating public spaces

through environmental hygiene (Plan de Manejo 2006; Isaza 2012; Infra Ojo 2012).

Management plan of the “tutelary” hills (2006) defines public space as all the space free and

open (p. 144). The plan intends to improve accessibility (p. 160) and visibility: the hills provide

natural viewpoints to the city and an escape from the industrial, contaminated, hectic spaces.

This is often repeated in newspaper articles and blog entries on the topic. Increasing the social

awareness and, through that possibly, developing the feeling of true possession and responsibility

for Self and the Other, becomes the focal point. However, quite a few connections remain

missing.

According to international standards, as mentioned in one article on the new project of

the River Park, the city has to provide at least 15 sq. m. of the public space per inhabitant. So far,

Medellin provides only 3.4 sq. m. (Botero 2011; Vargas Rodriguez 2013). This public space,

however, presents rather a quantitative than a qualitative category. Mutual respect of the private

or personal space that would include regulating the noise in overcrowded space, or controlling

street vendors, is not an explicit component of the public space, or aesthetics. “Public spaces are

not just about grass or concrete. It is about friendly relations,” states J. Vargas (cited in Botero

2011).

The project Ciudad del Rio (Spanish for the River city), for instance, aimed to change the

traditional “destination of the usage of the territory… changing for good the image of the city

and the river” (Isaza 2012). The absence of the river or a creek close to this area turns the name

into a metaphor of the single being, not just coexistence. Indeed, the public represents a mixture

of social groups. At the same time, it is the same noise, concrete, stickiness, graffiti, and crowd;

it is the street vendors who do not take „no‟ for an answer and will intrude in your conversation.

All in all, there is no private/personal space. It also has the standard set of the city attributes that

Isaza even compared with a Monopoly game: a bank, a museum, a hotel, a hospital, “not just

any” but the ones representing the power (Isaza 2012). Appropriation of hills also includes

kiosks, concrete paths, restaurants, street vendors, sports, crowds: no real escape. The same

picture applies to cafes, restaurants, streets, parks. El Salado Eco-park is a relatively small piece

of forest on the hills around a creek. It is oversaturated with restaurants, stands, and fireplaces,

all surrounded by a fence to bookend the metaphor of exclusion.

The nature is simultaneously present and absent. Green hills are visible from almost any

part of the city, and yet, to a big disappointment of many European tourists, they are almost

inaccessible for spontaneous strolls in solitude. The overpopulation of the city, including forcibly

displaced population (Hernandez Cifuentes 2013) and an oversaturation with commerce, traffic

and noise have turned Medellín into a disintegrated public space where there is no room for an

individual space. Only higher strata can probably afford more space, again as isolated

countryside homes and city apartments.

The conclusion, as mentioned in a few newspaper articles, is a better urban planning (see

Isaza 2012; Chaves 2008). So far the planning was focused more on public and the environment,

not in individuals or their healthy development and self-actualization.

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Conclusion

Medellín, as typically defined, is a modern city (e.g, Medellín 2012, 7), the “Most

Innovative City in the World” (Urban Land Institute 2013). It may indeed represent the

modernity by focusing on the abstract collective whole and ignoring an individual, thus robbing

Self from its essence.

Being so closely connected with the city and its dynamics, the river reflects its character

and image: violence, poverty, and thus danger; open, hidden, or imaginative. Representing

danger (both natural and anthropogenic), the river along with poor neighborhoods, violence and

social problems has been marginalized and kept invisible. Its concrete forms, the absence of

aquatic life in the river (Gómez Vélez, 2002) and lack of awareness of it (Restrepo Toro 2013)

reflect another city image – prevalence of artificial forms over natural, contrasting the urban

space and the nature. From the very beginning, the river shaped the city (Self), became the inner

monster and was pushed away to and kept in invisibility. Interestingly, that nature of Medellín,

particularly hills, were even compared with an oracle, a warning sent to the city in one poetical

text (González 2012), monsters‟ primary function (McNally 2011, 9; Shildrick 2002, 5). One

interviewee of a short documentary about the Medellín river compared mankind with animals

based on the way they treated the river (Clima 24/7 b).

City planning projects have focused on making the marginalized visible and increasing

their participation. Yet, as predominantly initiated by the upper classes, they would most likely

contribute to further social segregation. The foci are still commerce, civilization

(industrialization and taming), and the impersonal whole instead of the individual. The river and

nature in the city have been representing power relations between the civilized Self and the

uncivilized Other forgetting that they are a unit.

This article represents an early approximation to the subject. It still needs further

statistical studies and psychological analysis. Yet the main question is the same: will it continue

to be the source of fear or will become the source of eternal beauty (González R. 2012)?

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