Natural resistance. Amereida as a non-heroic expedition and unconditional university

Abstract

Through the metaphorical phrase "natural resistance", the author indicates still valid belief in the necessity of discovering the "internal sea" of Latin America, the constant effort of "the reinvention of America" (M. L. Pratt). She reminds the ambivalent consequences of A. von Humboldt’s descriptions of nature for the identity and history of the New World (growing cultural consequences of colonization and, at the same time, the political decolonization of the continent). This historical context is important for the understanding of the decolonization project called Amereida, in which the "weak", poetic, artistic tools of resistance were used. She describes travesía from Tierra del Fuego to Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia), carried out in 1965 by architects, poets and artists associated with the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, and the Open City, founded in 1970, in which they combined work, life and education of students. According to the author, the subordination of the architecture of poetry is a deconstruction practice aimed at achieving resistance to the world assigned to the university. The Open City can form the model of "unconditional university" (Derrida), but also the Latour's "resistant object" (the problem of the group's separation from the socio- political reality in the time of A. Pinochet's dictatorship).