|
|||||||||||||||||
SYNOPSIS
Quotes Federico Gaitán (principal protagonist): “When I was 13/14 years old, I started to be very critical towards the life in country clubs.“ “Even in Europe they have social inequality. Welcome to reality. I don’t care about inequality anymore. Europe itself is like a big country club.” Ariel, inhabitant of a slum (protagonist): “They have lots of money and that’s why they partition themselves. Looking at this wall, it is, as if they wanted to hide us from society. That’s why we feel marginalized.”
When I first came into touch with the topic of social segregation, it arrested my attention and didn’t let me go. I could not understand why people want to separate themselves from social and cultural variety. The ethnographic documentary “Life in bubbles” was created during my 9-month-fieldwork in Buenos Aires. It was part of my diploma at the University of Zurich. The topic of gated communities includes global themes, like the withdrawal of the state in liberal market economies and the widening gap between the poor and the rich – or to say, between the North and the South. The visual treatment of this matter is nothing new, but it has seldom been presented from the perspective of privileged people. There are a lot of documentaries about poverty and exploitation, but only a small range about the life of wealthy people.
Economical and political background The urban space of Latin America changed profoundly during the last decade. The consequences of the neo-liberal reforms of the 90’s, wanton neglect of public space and communal areas, the construction of private railway networks, social segregation behaviour, a fixation with upward social mobility and new consumer patterns of the elite and middle class have led to private, island-shaped, urbanizations forming. The marginalization of the poorer classes is linked to this phenomenon. At the same time as the walls of private zones rose, other quarters had been transformed into slums. Instead of social integration the gap between the extremes of society got bigger. In Argentina, this development started slowly in the 70’s and boomed during the mid 90’s. The phenomenon has become the central engine of the peripheral city development.
30’s 70’s 90’s The commercialization of country clubs was, and is, very successful. Clubs campaign with a ‘life in the green’ slogan, which guarantees not only safety for the children but also various leisure activities. Life in country clubs has become a lifestyle choice, in which key words are family and security. Depending on the purchase power of the clientele the offers are differentiated. Nowadays, the upper middle class access the country club lifestyle through eased access to credit.
The filmmaker on country clubs I am acting from the assumption that all humans feel the need of a safe and comfortable life. The country club lifestyle satisfies this and other needs. But it has individual and social consequences that are alarming. The physical borders, for example, walls, can also establish immaterial borders. Because the partition from the rest of the society is not only physical but also emotional, spiritual and social. The more intense the partition is, the more it is felt as a necessary measurement. Because the other becomes a dangerous stranger. The physical as well as the immaterial partition leads to a society, which is no longer based on solidarity. It is a zero sum game. It is not for nothing that life in country clubs is also referred to as a life in bubbles. The inside becomes a safe place while the outside gets a quality in the sense of the world from the others. This outside world seems to be the more dangerous, the more safe the inside world is perceived. This system reproduces itself through the socialization of the children and induces a divided society in the end. The partition can even leave its marks emotionally. Namely, the conflicting emotions that stem from living in the ostentatious luxury of the ‘Countries’ yet feeling empathy for the others.
Glasze, Georg (2001): Geschlossene Wohnkomplexe (Gated Communities): “Enklaven des Wohlbefindens” in der Wirtschaftsliberalen Stadt. In: Roggenthin, Heike (Hrsg.): Stadt – der Lebensraum der Zukunft? Gegenwärtige raumbezogene Prozesse in Verdichtungsräumen der Erde, Mainzer Kontaktstudium Geographie, Band 7: 39-52. Habermas, Jürgen (1998): Die Postnationale Konstellation und die Zukunft der Demokratie. In: ders.: Die postnationale Konstellation. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp: 91-169. Svampa, Maristella (2004): La Brecha Urbana. Countries y Barrios Privados. Buenos Aires: Capital Intelectual. |
|||||||||||||||||
