Revisiting Managua's Symbolic Landscape: Place and Meaning in Post-Everything Nicaragua

Keywords: Managua, Nicaragua, cultural landscape, historical-cultural geography
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

The devastating earthquake that shook Managua, Nicaragua in late December 1973 had profound, far-reaching impacts on the people and landscape of Nicaragua's capital. In the ensuing fifty years, the formerly vibrant but heavily damaged core of the city has been redeveloped and reimagined as the symbol of a new Nicaragua. Prior research explored the trajectory of landscape change in the historic center of the city, from destruction and neglect through the years of revolution and war to more recent efforts to rebuild and redefine the city in the twenty-first century. In the long rebuilding process, the city's historic center emerged as a highly symbolic landscape, reflecting the competing currents of Nicaragua’s past as well as the evolving social, economic, and political narrative of contemporary Nicaragua. A recent return visit to Managua provided the opportunity to document more recent changes in the urban landscape, including an emphasis on recreation and tourism spaces, and revisit previous conclusions on the nature of the rebuilt urban landscape. This research reflects upon the earlier observations of Managua's old city center as a contested landscape where competing visions of Nicaragua’s past, present, and future have been made manifest, suggesting that the struggle to conflate the identity of the rebuilt city with the historical narrative of Nicaragua itself may now have concluded its final chapter.