Ciudad Juárez as a Palimpsest: Searching for Ecotestimonios

Abstract

A palimpsest, traditionally, is a manuscript that, due to disuse, necessity, or desire has been overwritten. It is, in essence, a text with a ghost. The words that have been scraped off and written over, however faintly, give testimony to what came before. For Andreas Huyssen, “The trope of the palimpsest is inherently literary and tied to writing, but it can also be fruitfully used to discuss configurations of urban spaces and their unfolding in time without making architecture and the city simply into text” (7). The spatial dynamic of the city adds a dimension of complexity not seen in a traditional text; symbols on the cityscape can be analyzed as geographical markers inscribing space with meaning. The geography of Ciudad Juárez serves as a witness whose surface is covered with ecotestimonios—graffiti, marches, and posters that create a memoryscape for victims of feminicide giving a more informal, nomadic recounting of events than traditional testimony.¹ In the case of ecotestimonio, geography is the witness, and the voices collected upon its surface are varied. The trope of the palimpsest also allows an analysis of space that is inclusive of memory and history.

Juárez blows like cold wind through the windows of our souls and demands our attention. We embrace its images as if they could fill our own empty spaces, but we cannot hold on.

(Julián Cardona)