In Construcciones literarias a la intemperie, Andrés Maximiliano Tosi explores how urban space is narrated from the margins, highlighting how literary texts authored by or about those in conditions of homelessness, precarity, or exclusion offer alternative mappings of the city. Tosi positions these writings as epistemic interventions that contest the dominant logics of urban intelligibility, particularly those rooted in technocratic discourse and visual abstraction. The notion of “a la intemperie”—being exposed to the elements—functions both literally and metaphorically, referencing physical unshelteredness and symbolic exposure to urban disregard. Through a meticulous literary analysis of fragments, testimonies, and autofictions, the article traces how such narratives destabilise official cartographies and recompose the city from below. These literary constructions do not merely document marginality; they produce counter-spatialities, where language serves as both a refuge and a site of resistance. The text draws on spatial theory, especially the work of Michel de Certeau and Walter Benjamin, to frame urban storytelling as a tactic of survival that reclaims voice and visibility within hostile landscapes. Tosi argues that these writings articulate a form of poetic agency, wherein narrative not only reflects spatial injustice but also imagines worlds otherwise. By foregrounding voices that are often dismissed as incoherent, unproductive, or mad, the article reveals how literature can index the city’s affective underside—its fears, silences, and ruptures. Ultimately, Tosi challenges readers to recognise the city not only as built form but as a discursive terrain shaped by those who write from precarious proximity to abandonment.
Tosi, A.M. (2019) ‘Construcciones literarias a la intemperie. Algunas reflexiones sobre el rol de la narrativa en el abordaje de las ciudades’, URBS. Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales, 9(2), pp. 97–104.
