Incivility or civility? modifications of the urban environment in the social manifestation [incivilitat o civilitat? modificacions de l’entorn urbà en la manifestació social] [¿incivilidad o civilidad? modificaciones del entorno urbano en la manifestación social]

Disorder and incivility in Public Space are associated with a degradation of the urban environment and a loss of control that threatens social coexistence. However, the social protest leaves traces in space that are an expression of an activation of the common that reveals the normative value of these categories. We propose that the alteration of public space is a way of construct the common that gives continuity to processes of social politicization. The photo-elicited interviews have been used with people who sympathize with the demonstrations that occurred during three months in Chile. In there, It is analyzed how the interventions of the physical space of the city of Valparaíso are understood and signified. The results show us that the meanings around urban interventions and the elements that constitute them (bodies, texts, places and forms) are interpreted from a collective disalientation. That interpretation legitimizes and values the interventions positively by virtue of the functions that are associated and its provoking emotion. Our findings allow us to question a tradition of psychosocial perspectives that associate the alteration of the urban environment with dynamics of insecurity and crime.