Las ciudades y las identidades: patrimonios, memorias y narrativas sociales

Abstract

This paper derives from the idea that today’s metropolis is an (hiper)space where social trajectories and signs of belongingness are continuously mixing together and redefining themselves. This fast transmutation of social identities —a process called “creative destruction of identities”— is correlated and analyzed in the light of contemporary cultural changes. In a context in which social identities seem to give way to temporary states of social identification, one can argue that even the historical and cultural heritage of the cities, mainly their ruins, monuments and museums, submitted to the rules of aestheticization and commodification, are now facing the question of their own identity. As a matter of fact, the past itself has become a commodity and therefore the historical and cultural praise of the city can hardly distinguish it from the fair.