FROM PROTO-URBAN TERRITORIES TO URBAN TERRITORIES: CIELO DE SERPIENTES BY ANTONIO GIL

Territory, with all its levels, strata or subsoil layers of meaning, is a glimpse of worlds articulated and placed in a culture. When man marks or demarcates a territory, he defines a locus which varies according to the representation and consciousness he has of the horizons of his everyday, familial or strange worlds. Hence the strong connection of territory with personal or collective identity, and its manifestation in memory, imagination and discourse as illustrated in Cielo de Serpientes by Antonio Gil. In this novel, according to our analysis, the finding of a child sacrificed following the Inca rituals in the Cerro El Plomo-in the Andean foothills and proto-urban level-causes a reactive discourse in the contemporary territoriality of the urban metropolis which subverts the fragile joints of all the different spaces and strata of Santiago City. In this way, Cielo de Serpientes presents a narrative discussion of the segments and status of knowledge and power in a way that debates with the notion of territory and with the forms of cultural and popular knowledge present in it. In this text, space is a lived dimension appropriated by each individual and non-exchangeable for other practices or other dreams.