Urban resignification areas in the production of space in Cuenca: El Barranco case

The Barranco of Cuenca, Ecuador, is an urban sector characterized by its sloping topography. For decades, its interventions have followed homogenization and commodification models that have led to a crisis of social space framed in a spatial alliance between the tourism industry and the real estate system. This article seeks to understand the production of space in this sector from the perspective of urban archaeology. The methodological design is qualitative-exploratory, supported by historical-critical and socio-spatial practices analysis. This approach allows the evaluation of urban elements in a space of representation, incorporating the processing of uses and practices by historical layers. Consequently, we demonstrate a conflicting influence of the past on contemporary space, revealing urban resignification areas that stimulate the imagination of another Barranco. This theoretical-methodological framework can be replicated to achieve legitimacy for spaces in dispute which have not yet found a solution to integrating the inscriptions of the past with current urban appropriations.