Ungrateful spaces. Prison and the “mountains of dense forests” in “córdoba del tucumán”. XVIII century

Abstract

The present research attempts to contrast the prison and the mountains as a space where the convicted criminals live, survive and suffer with equal misery. Detained in the prison, the convict awaits his punishment, but the fragility of those places turned precarious his stay in it. The mountain represented a better refuge for those who were outside the law. The perception of the authorities considers that those who lived in the mountains and lived hidden, away from civilization, ware necessarily transgressors of the law. The relationship between both territories, between the one which has normalized its legality and the one which has opposed its own rule, bare the fragility of the social structure. Untamed spaces, are the territories of the “Other”, the enemy, the object of fear and mistrust. The world of law, the universe of rules and standards that are intended to be known and obey, is expressed as two sides of the same medal with the disorder of the world of excesses; a different world where there is no room for social control. But, both the mountains and the prison, are governed by its own harsh and intemperate laws that establish channels of communication because through all that time, one constant was imposed and is that one of these two spaces cannot survive without the other. Those who defy the rules always returned to the city where the prison stands, because they cannot support the times of intense loneliness, helplessness, of the marginal spaces. The prison guards know and all they can do is wait patiently, for a return that is always announced.