The Negotiating Table as Device of Domination. Analysis From the Press to the Bicentennial Bridge Conflict, Chile

Abstract

In urban conflicts, there is relative consensus that the negotiation table is a device for dispute resolution, which, being outside the instituted order, would be a sort of triumph for counter-hegemonic groups, as it forces proponents and the public sector to sit down and negotiate. However, our hypothesis suggests that this is not always the case; in some cases they can act as mechanisms of control and domination. For this discussion, we take the conflict of the Bicentennial Bridge in the city of Concepción, whose layout confronted informal settlers and the public-state sector, investigating from the press which of the contending groups imposed the mechanism to resolve the controversy. Thus, and based on the framing theory, content analysis, and assisted by ATLAS TI software, the research yielded evidence in favor of the hypothesis. Of all the procedural frames in dispute, it was the negotiation table that prevailed. However, it was the hegemonic actors and their discourses that subtly implanted the idea in the public arena and civil society, maintaining their power over an apparently citizen-led process. In addition, we noted the parallelism between the installation of this device, and the redirection of the substantial dissident public discourses, which went from defining the origin of the conflict in a centralized and excluding urbanization system, demanding recognition of the political-collective rights of the settlers, to a framing focused on an individual housing modernization, reducing the conflict to a controversy over adequate compensation. Finally, we discuss how this device reframed the conflict, made the project viable, and helped to mark the limits of what was possible, marking the material evolution of the space that was the object of the controversy.