Territories of Here and There

Abstract

At the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, weekly bi-national markets exemplify (within a tense social context) the economic relevance of the goods and people metabolism along with emerging bi-national social relations. For this border territory, a temporal perspective is productive to develop a comprehensive grasp of the area; the markets, daily local and insular logistics, commuters and yearly fairs reveal this character. Moreover, inhabitants of the border engage in transmigratory practices, meaning, they pertain and participate in more than one community.

In this thesis I focus on Malpaso|se, a strategic node at the southern border connecting the main capitals of the island. At the same time, is the location of the most important border logistic check point on the island and the site of a prominent binational market. The spatial organization of this site relies on the dialectic of mobile and fixed spatial configurations given the nature of the market scheduling. However, its current configuration prioritises security -with its inherent violence- hinders the potentials for cross-border interaction, restricts the operability of the current activities of the site and reinforces pejorative socio-spatial dynamics. For this reason, I based the approach of this project on cross-border itinerant programs, infrastructure thinking and adaptable design interventions. The goal is to produce a common territory, promote multi-temporal practices, foster bi-directional social exchange and develop spatial configurations that respond to the uncertainties of use under different time frameworks; daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.