Abstract

VELASQUEZ LOPEZ, Paula Andrea. CEMETERIES… INTERSTITIAL TERRITORIES. Hacia promoc. Salud [online]. 2009, vol.14, n.2, pp.24-38. ISSN 0121-7577.

¿How can a sense of belonging be constructed in and of places that are socially configured by pain and sorrow? First off, sorrow and pain are above all life forms. In this text, said forms are objectified in the cemetery as the institutional place of death, which, through practices and discourses, becomes an interstitial territoriality. Territoriality is assumed as the production of territory, and interstices as spaces that are subsumed or recesses of larger territories. The objective of this article is to analyze the configurations and territorial planning of cemeteries in order to present them as an interstitial territoriality, which takes form in the territorial planning of the cemetery as a place. For said purpose, the ethnographic method is used through the analysis of every day and institutional discourses and practices. The results are shown on the conceptual and social levels. Conceptually speaking, schemes for comprehensive models on interstitial territorialities are proposed; while the social level suggests a reading including heterotopia, topophobia and topophilia as practical possibilities of conceiving and living the cemetery. The resignification that goes beyond seeing the cemetery as the place for death and its inclusion as one of the basic territorial units of territorial planning and management in contemporary societies makes up the conclusion of this text.

Keywords : Territoriality; cemetery; interstices; territorial planning; heterotopia; topophobia; topophilia.

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