Free time and public space: Traces of a civilization

Abstract

This article results from the investigation entitled "Free time, public space and identity. Case Study Parque Plaza Liber Seregni". The analysis aims at problematizing the notions of free time and public space, and their role in the processes of civilization of modern Uruguay, thinking about the settings that these concepts acquire at present For this purpose, we will attempt theoretical approaches from the perspective of Milner, as well as from the historical approach suggested by Barrán. Between the end of the XIX century and early XX centuries, Uruguay undergoes a series of political, economic, social and cultural transformations of "modernization". A civilizing project would reorganize the social life of the population, in relation to a territory and a production. The adoption of the law of 8 hours, as a sign of the establishment of the boundary between working time and free time; as well as the creation and development of public spaces, give rise to the dichotomies working time-free time and public space-private space. It is worth asking: what settings do these binominals acquire today? Under what assumptions does the popularization of these terms underlie?