Spatial unequality and territorial conflicts in Bogotá: the case of Botadero Gibraltar (1979-2015)

Abstract

This article studies the processes that led Gibraltar, a property located in the south west of Bogotá, to become between 1979 and 1984 in a place of final disposal of waste and a scene of territorial conflicts. This research is based on Melé’s perspective on territorial transactions and Durand and Metzger’s proposal on spatial vulnerability; In addition, it uses various documental sources, including archival documents, interviews, hemerography and secondary bibliography. Based on the documentary corpus and the theoretical apparatus, the article identifies the needs and decisions that led to the destination of Gibraltar as a place of waste disposal in the middle of the urbanization process towards the west of Bogotá and within the framework of changes in the techniques of collection and disposal of waste. The article also investigates how the destination of Gibraltar as a place of waste disposal allowed the development of spatial vulnerabilities that generated conflicts of territorial proximity in which social actors built various forms of organization to assert their interests. In this way, the article proposes that the waste problem on the Gibraltar property is related to the disorderly expansion of the city and the lack of administrative capacity at the municipal level, which allowed the location of formal and informal urbanizations close to the site of waste disposal and generated spatial vulnerabilities that gave way to territorial conflicts of proximity and transactions around the coexistence of urban activities.