Abstract

CARREIRA, Ana María. The disturbing and conflictive relationships of the people of Bogotá with their waters. Tabula Rasa [online]. 2007, n.6, pp.263-285. ISSN 1794-2489.

The intention of this text is to demonstrate the separation between the territory (el estar) and the inhabitants (los seres), illustrated in the history of Bogotá from its foundation in 1538 today. The waters are part of the territory, and therefore they generate ways of being. The indifference and abandonment of waters expressed through contamination, channeled and encased rivers, and the consequences; floods, stinking smells, overflowing, shortage, are images that do not contribute to constructing that “being” from “being” in the territory. In order to study this separation between the people of Bogotá and their forty-nine currents of water, we present the key moments of this relationship, from the poetical conception of water created by the first inhabitants of the savannah, the break suffered from the foundation of the city, and the beginning of a process in which water is understood as a resource, and the predominant interest to exploit it. Thus, Bogotá has not developed its aesthetic and spiritual attributes, and has gone after images and strange models for its territory.

Keywords : Bogotá; waters; territory; myths; development.

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