(Des)habitar lo privado: experiencias suspendidas en viviendas abandonadas por violencia en la región de Juárez

Abstract

This article examines how extreme violence in Ciudad Juárez and the Juárez Valley has deeply disrupted the experience of inhabiting domestic space. Drawing from ontological, phenomenological, and critical perspectives, it brings together the ideas of Martin Heidegger, Gastón Bachelard, Walter Benjamin, and Pamela Colombo to propose the concept of suspended experience: a fractured sense of dwelling caused by traumatic events such as forced disappearances, displacement, and massacres. The paper argues that homes affected by violence should not be seen merely as physical ruins but as sites of memory where grief, resistance, and collective memory converge. Inspired by Elizabeth Jelin’s work, the article frames these spaces as symbolic arenas for dispute, justice, and community-based reappropriation. Ultimately, it calls for a rethinking of housing as affective and political archives and urges urban interventions grounded in memory practices in regions impacted by structural violence.